A sculpture trail of new artworks will be launched in Kingston this August.
Kingston First, Canbury Community Trust, Kingston Council and Kingston University put out an open call for professional and part-time artists from Kingston and beyond to submit their ideas.
The trail has had 40 submissions, and six will be shortlisted by the judging panel to be temporarily placed around the town centre starting in August and lasting for three months.
The idea is for these sculptures to be all over the centre in the streets, parks or even on the sides of buildings in publicly accessible spaces from Kingston town centre to Canbury Gardens.
As a nod to the legacy of artistic creativity and culture in Kingston, the panel will be chaired by David Mach RA, the artist behind the red phone box sculpture ‘Out of Order’ which has been an iconic part of Kingston for 30 years and was refurbished by Kingston First last year.
Young people will also play a part in the judging the entries, with two 16-18-year-olds selected to join the judging panel.
One sculpture will be chosen by the public to become a permanent feature of the town centre and this winning artist will receive £10,000 prize money.
The trail will include other existing publicly sited artworks like Carole Hodgson FRSS’s wall-based sculpture in the underground car park (1986) and Mat Collishaw’s new 11 metre long, three channel video installation ‘Echolocation’.
The hope is to add to Kingston’s culture and heritage while attracting more people to come and explore all that the centre has to offer in a Covid-safe way as people have been taking to the outdoors more and more.
