Have Your Say on artist shortlist for new piece of public art at St Davids Cathedral

ANCIENT Connections, three-year art, heritage, and tourism project linking North Pembrokeshire and North Wexford, wants to hear your views on the design ideas of the shortlisted artists for a new cross-border public art commission.

An online consultation has been launched on the Have Your Say site run by Pembrokeshire County Council and will be open for review and comment until Monday, June 7.

Five artists have been shortlisted for this ambitious commission.

The project will culminate in two permanent or semi-permanent artworks, one on the grounds of St Davids Cathedral and one in Ferns in County Wexford that will be linked to each other, encouraging visitors to go to both regions to truly appreciate the artwork as a whole. The artwork in St Davids will be installed on the grounds of St Davids Cathedral. In Ferns, the location is yet to be decided.

The shortlisted artists are:

Bedwyr Williams in collaboration with Contemporary Art Society; Holger C. Lonze; S Mark Gubb & Alan Phelan; Simon Watkinson and Studio Melyn (Linda Norris & Rachel Phillips)

The team at Ancient Connections wants to hear what the communities of North Pembrokeshire think about the proposed designs that these artists have created. You can see the artists’ proposals online and take part in the online consultation survey.

The responses will contribute to the artists’ final scores and your comments will be reviewed by the evaluation panel. Anyone with a postcode of SA61, SA62, SA64, and SA65 in North Pembrokeshire can take part. Anyone requiring assistance to access or complete the online consultation, please phone the helpline 07798 925695 Tues – Thurs 9 am – 5 pm, Friday 9 am -1 pm

The artists’ design proposals can also be viewed in a physical form in the St David’s Room at Oriel Y Parc until 1^st June but the survey must be completed online.

The overall budget for both artworks to include all costs is €175,000. While this sounds like a lot of money, the budget needs to cover all costs in both regions such as production and materials, artists’ fees, transport of materials and artworks, installation costs including any foundations required, travel and accommodation, costs associated with obtaining planning consent from the relevant authorities, commissioning of reports to obtain planning consent eg archaeological surveys, ecological surveys, costs for community consultation programme, and documentation of the artworks.

Project Manager for Ancient Connections, Siobhan McGovern says:

“We want to encourage everyone in North Pembrokeshire to take part in the public art survey. It’s important that their views are taken into account so we can choose the right artist for the commission.”

Ancient Connections is led by Pembrokeshire County Council, together with partners Wexford County Council, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, and Visit Wexford funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales co-operation programme.