Art / best of bristol
Best of Bristol 2018: Art
Estate of the Arts
This year saw the arrival of Estate of the Arts, a brand new art space in an old industrial estate in South Liberty Lane on the borders of Bedminster and Ashton, complete with workshops and studio spaces for 46 innovative artists, makers and charities. Its first year has been a lively one, too, with open studios, affordable art fairs and, this month, a Christmas makers’ market.
is needed now More than ever
Upfest 2018
BS3’s brilliant annual street art festival returned this summer with an eye-catching double theme: a tie-in with The Simpsons, and a nod to the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the UK – resulting in the eye-catching and somehow appropriate double portrait, in Aldi car park, of Lisa Simpson and a young female protester yelling into a megaphone.
People of the Croft, Stokes Croft
This summer’s project from fine-art photographer and Stokes Croft resident Claudio Ahlers was an art installation set, that saw 24 hours’ worth of camera action create an authentic insight into Bristol’s most dynamic neighbourhood. With a set styled like a living room erected on the corner of City Road for one day only, 24H Our City: People of the Croft was theatre maker Sarah Middleton’s job to bring a home-from-home atmosphere to the busy junction.
Proper Bristol postcard competition
© Giulia Spadafora 2018
“No more bridge. Easy on the balloons.” These were two of the criteria in this photography competition, that aimed to show sides of Bristol away from the Instagram cliches. Proper Bristol asked folk to help create a new series of postcards depicting the best and worst of our city. Some 370 pictures were submitted (Demonstrator by Giulia Spadafora, pictured), offering a range of “witty, beautiful, angry and affectionate responses” to our fair city.
Caraboo Projects, Bedminster
In a very productive year for new artists’ communities springing from old industrial areas (especially across BS3), Caraboo Projects joined Estate of the Arts (above) as a new contemporary art space, home to artist studios, exhibitions, workshops and other events, right in the centre of Bedminster. Based in a former abandoned printworks in Stafford Street, just off of East Street, Caraboo Projects has already hosted its first brace of exhibitions and has plans aplenty for 2019.
Read all our Art stories from 2018 at b247.staging.proword.press/culture/art
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
