Joaquin Gasgonia Palencia November 27, 2009
Call for Qualifications Belfast Harbor Public Art Project
500 words
The spirit of public art is civic - it arises from the community's socio-historical experiences, from its sense of oneness and solidarity, from its relationship with its physical environment and how it was thus historically shaped and molded. Hence, to me, all public art must arise from an interaction with the community, its culture and its environment. It should be as deeply and irrevocably part of the psyche of the appreciating public.
At the same time, public art should encourage a getting-together of this community. It should provide ample opportunities for closing the gaps that has typified a lot of socio-cultural groups today, primarily due to the pressures of work and the way the world rushes around our lives these days.
Public art must conform to standards that the world imposes upon itself to encourage/urge/remedy situations in the surrounding environment. This has a strong bearing on environmentalism, recycling, sustainability. There is a wealth of options in today's world, on how structures can be built so that it concurs with ideas of sustainability and environmentalism.
Public art must concretize, solidify and put to test, the community's ideas on solutions and remedies to civic and global problems. On a smaller scale, the problem of estrangements within a community, or how sites within that community can be reformed and re-energized to ass to the quality of life of that community. Public art can do this, especially if it is public furniture, which encourages people to linger, sit down, rest and maybe talk to each other and make new friends.
I started painting and sculpting in 1983, and to date have staged more than 50 exhibitions both in Manila and abroad. My interest in Pubic Art started in 2005, with Trans- at the Greenbelt Pebble Park in Makati City, followed by an award-winning entry, Ocean Dragon, to the Sea Art Festival of the 2006 Busan Biennale. My video installation, Banca, won an Award of Merit at the 1st Kobe Biennale 2007 held in Japan. I just finished working on a major public art commission by Sun Hung Kai Properties of Hong Kong for the Hong Kong SAR government in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics, installing my sculpture Red Horse in honor of the Equestrian games. I am currently working on a public art project for the City of Baltimore,Maryland for its International Convention Center .
I am mostly an instinctive artist, drawing from emotional and mental inspiration. My involvement in public art has made me very sensitive to cultural undercurrents for site-specific sculptures and installations. I believe that my work need to be grounded in the culture and perspective of the surrounding environment in order for it to reach it's fullest development as Art. It has also enabled me and my team, to develop skills working with other disciplines like architecture, interior design, landscape design, as well as governments and its regulatory agencies.
I would be very interested to provide a public art piece to re-energize and re-invigorate Belfast Harbor.
200 words
I work with the undulating line, capturing the freedom and the exuberance of line and color to energize the artwork. The site in Belfast harbor is in dire need of re-animation, to make it people-friendly. The public artwork, which I will name Red Sails, will stand on the site where the land meets the water. It will be art furniture, a bench on which the citizens of Belfast can sit and watch the harbor all day, maybe all night; where they can meet other citizens and create exciting new relationships, view new perspectives regarding the harbor, the city and themselves.
Its red upper arches will curve upwards towards the sky, creating circular frames for viewing the harbor, while its lower crescents will broaden when they touch ground to provide seating for a community come to view their very own piece of the sea.
From further inland, these red arches will look like red sails heading for the harbor, while from out at sea, they will seem like a flotilla of boats with the same red sails headed out.
Red Sails will provide an oasis of rest and social interaction while creating highly aesthetic vistas for both land and sea.
Joaquin Gasgonia Palencia November 27, 2009
Call for Qualifications Belfast Harbor Public Art Project
500 words
The spirit of public art is civic - it arises from the community's socio-historical experiences, from its sense of oneness and solidarity, from its relationship with its physical environment and how it was thus historically shaped and molded. Hence, to me, all public art must arise from an interaction with the community, its culture and its environment. It should be as deeply and irrevocably part of the psyche of the appreciating public.
At the same time, public art should encourage a getting-together of this community. It should provide ample opportunities for closing the gaps that has typified a lot of socio-cultural groups today, primarily due to the pressures of work and the way the world rushes around our lives these days.
Public art must conform to standards that the world imposes upon itself to encourage/urge/remedy situations in the surrounding environment. This has a strong bearing on environmentalism, recycling, sustainability. There is a wealth of options in today's world, on how structures can be built so that it concurs with ideas of sustainability and environmentalism.
Public art must concretize, solidify and put to test, the community's ideas on solutions and remedies to civic and global problems. On a smaller scale, the problem of estrangements within a community, or how sites within that community can be reformed and re-energized to ass to the quality of life of that community. Public art can do this, especially if it is public furniture, which encourages people to linger, sit down, rest and maybe talk to each other and make new friends.
I started painting and sculpting in 1983, and to date have staged more than 50 exhibitions both in Manila and abroad. My interest in Pubic Art started in 2005, with Trans- at the Greenbelt Pebble Park in Makati City, followed by an award-winning entry, Ocean Dragon, to the Sea Art Festival of the 2006 Busan Biennale. My video installation, Banca, won an Award of Merit at the 1st Kobe Biennale 2007 held in Japan. I just finished working on a major public art commission by Sun Hung Kai Properties of Hong Kong for the Hong Kong SAR government in time for the 2008 Summer Olympics, installing my sculpture Red Horse in honor of the Equestrian games. I am currently working on a public art project for the City of Baltimore,Maryland for its International Convention Center .
I am mostly an instinctive artist, drawing from emotional and mental inspiration. My involvement in public art has made me very sensitive to cultural undercurrents for site-specific sculptures and installations. I believe that my work need to be grounded in the culture and perspective of the surrounding environment in order for it to reach it's fullest development as Art. It has also enabled me and my team, to develop skills working with other disciplines like architecture, interior design, landscape design, as well as governments and its regulatory agencies.
I would be very interested to provide a public art piece to re-energize and re-invigorate Belfast Harbor.
200 words
I work with the undulating line, capturing the freedom and the exuberance of line and color to energize the artwork. The site in Belfast harbor is in dire need of re-animation, to make it people-friendly. The public artwork, which I will name Red Sails, will stand on the site where the land meets the water. It will be art furniture, a bench on which the citizens of Belfast can sit and watch the harbor all day, maybe all night; where they can meet other citizens and create exciting new relationships, view new perspectives regarding the harbor, the city and themselves.
Its red upper arches will curve upwards towards the sky, creating circular frames for viewing the harbor, while its lower crescents will broaden when they touch ground to provide seating for a community come to view their very own piece of the sea.
From further inland, these red arches will look like red sails heading for the harbor, while from out at sea, they will seem like a flotilla of boats with the same red sails headed out.
Red Sails will provide an oasis of rest and social interaction while creating highly aesthetic vistas for both land and sea.