The British New Towns

Séance du séminaire OAB organisée par Charlotte Gould

David Fée (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle) & Andrew Demetrius (University of Saint Andrews)

La séance a lieu en mode hybride : dans la salle de séminaire 2 du Bâtiment Max Weber, Université Paris Nanterre, et à distance. Le lien de connexion sera disponible avant chaque séance.

Andrew Demetrius
"David Harding and the New Town art of Glenrothes"
In May 1968, as social protest erupted on the streets of Paris, a small yet significant echo sounded 700 miles north as David Harding (b.1937) was appointed ’town artist’ at Glenrothes, a postwar New Town in Fife, Scotland. Harding developed quietly radical approaches to public art during his tenure, 1968-78, that shifted away from postwar civic art and traditional public sculpture toward an environmental and community-oriented practice.

In the decades after the Second World War the British government combined the process of reconstruction with a radical economic and social vision, modernising industry and expanding the Welfare State to create new ways of working and living. In Scotland this manifested as the creation of five New Towns built to attract employers and workers, offering desirable modern housing and infrastructure. Over time town planners recognised problems of social dislocation and spatial disconnection, and so employed artists in efforts to humanise stark, modern environments through aesthetic intervention and the creation of identity.

This presentation outlines the background and role of the town artist, before examining thematically contextualised case studies that show diverse typologies of art in infrastructure; the influence of history, literature, and the politics of liberation; participatory sculpture and play. We observe different modes of utopian thought as the singular vision of modernism is challenged by postmodern plurality. My research charts Harding’s conceptual development to reveal what made his approach innovative, subversive, and a significant precursor to social art practice and creative placemaking that followed.

Andrew Demetrius in "Meet You at the Hippos", narrated by actor Mark Bonnar, is on youtube



David Fée
Descriptif à venir