Art
Preview: Bristol Art Trail
Making its debut over the first weekend of September, Bristol Art Trail invites local creative folk, whether professional or amateur, to open their home, studio, shop or gallery to the public. Its accompanying app features comprehensive artist profiles and search menu options to help you create your own personalised art trail across the city. Here’s co-founder Sophie Rees to tell us more.
Tell us the Bristol Art Trail story so far. When, and why, was the idea born?
We started developing Bristol Art Trail at the beginning of this year. Having worked for many years curating public art and events, we both have first-hand experience of supporting artists and developing programmes for public engagement.
Bristol Art Trail offers the opportunity for everyone living and working within a Bristol postcode to open their home, studio, shop or gallery to the public. We want to support the creative community throughout the city, from the centre to the edges. It’s a passion project, without funding – so we are relying on the community to join in and help create a new outlet for artists to showcase their work as part of a wider Bristol network.
‘Echelon’ by Lisa Takahashi. Find more of Lisa’s work at www.lisatakahashi.com
Bristol already has a thriving network of neighbourhood art trails – are you offering something different?
Bristol Art Trail came from our own experiences of not being able to join our local art trail, because it was already fully subscribed.
We’ve made the art trail as affordable as possible for the artists, by using technology instead of printed material that, ultimately, goes in the bin. This approach also allows individuals to apply right up until the day of the event, with each profile editable by the artist at any point.
The app is free to download and allows the public to navigate profiles across a map of Bristol, then save their favourites into their own customised art trail. Public artwork is also included, profiling various works throughout the city available to view year-round. For example, we have just added all 18 of Luke Jerram’s Play Me, I’m Yours street pianos so that people can see where they have been placed across Bristol.
Rose Nisbet, ‘Sofa Buddy’
Have you had a healthy amount of applicants?
We are offering 10 free memberships in each Bristol postcode area, to encourage sign-ups in places where there may not (yet) be a strong artistic community. The response has been great, with many postcodes quickly filled. There is no selection criteria other than a Bristol postcode and the work falling within art and design. Anyone who creates work can take part, whether they consider themselves amateur or fully-fledged artist.
We’ve also had a mixture of artists who already exhibit on a neighbourhood trail, but would like to exhibit more often; and others from areas that don’t currently have their own trails.
Pieces by Twelve Twenty Ceramics
What sort of impact are you hoping for?
We want to give people the opportunity to exhibit their work and connect with a broader artistic community, offering an affordable outlet to promote and sell their work. More features will be added to the app in due course, such as a Venue Finder section for those who would like to take part but need a venue in which to show their work. We hope that momentum will build year on year, creating a bigger network of artists taking part across the city.
Bristol Art Trail citywide, Sept 1-3. For more info, visit www.bristolarttrail.com
Pictured top: Amy Hutchings, Heron at the Pineapple Canal
is needed now More than ever
Read more: Grayson Perry exhibtion at Arnolfini
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
