Art / News
Bristol’s history features in new Old City artworks
Next time you are walking through the Old City, look down by your feet and also look up above your head.
Two new sets of art installations have been unveiled to mark the area’s pedestrianisation, with the council-commissioned works hoping to inform locals and visitors alike about the heritage of the Old City.
They join another recent new work by Andy Council, who has painted four murals in the arches of St John on the Wall church.
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Look Up, Look Down by Graft – aka husband and wife artists Sophie Higgins Wheeler and Rob Wheeler – encourages people to find missing pieces of a pattern, with images on the trail mirroring features of buildings throughout the Old City.
The trail starts on Clare Street with a grid giving a series of clues to images made from thermoplastic on streets and alleyways.
‘Look Up, Look Down’ highlights hidden architectural treasures along a trail encouraging people to find missing pieces of the pattern – photo: Martin Booth
The second installation, Old City Flags, created by The Lamplighters, uses original artworks and documents from Bristol Museum and Bristol Archives alongside original digital photography and cyanotype printing by Amy Peck and digital drawings by Dee Moxon and Stephanie Reeves.
The flags feature the likes of the clock on the Corn Exchange with two minute hands, the city’s first gay bar – the Radnor Rooms on St Nicholas Street – and the UK’s earliest surviving provincial newspaper, the Bristol Post Boy.
‘Old City Flags’ draws together many strands of interest in the Old City, fusing together photographs of historic architecture with remembered stories and accounts from Bristol’s past – photo: Martin Booth
“The flags represent a tiny fraction of the stories which ooze from the walls of the Old City,” said Dee Moxon from The Lamplighters.
Graft co-founder, Sophie Higgins Wheeler, added: “As passionate learners of local history, we always weave in historical facts and legends – from the extra clock hand showing ‘Bristol time’ to the ghost signs and parish boundary markers easily missed unless you look up.
“We’re delighted to be involved in this project which will encourage Bristolians to find out more about our great city’s history and enjoy it on foot.”
Join Bristol24/7 Editor Martin Booth on walks of the Old City and beyond with Yuup. For more information, visit www.yuup.co/experiences/explore-bristol-s-quirkiest-corners
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: Renowned Bristol artist creates new murals in medieval entrance to Old City
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