GREENOCK Waterfront Set For New Public Art Installation

A £65,000 ‘artistic intervention’ is being commissioned for the cycle route on Greenock’s waterfront.

It’s hoped the public art installation will be completed by the end of the summer, although the exact location and form of the work has still to be decided.

It is being funded by active travel organisation Sustrans and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

A report updating Inverclyde councillors about the project stated: “Sustrans approached council officers with a view to co-funding an artistic intervention on the National Cycle Network (NCN) 75 on the waterfront in Greenock.

“Inverclyde Great Place Scheme (a National Lottery Heritage Fund project based within Inverclyde Council’s Libraries, Educational Development and Arts Team) worked with Sustrans to commission a piece of community engagement to ascertain the public appetite for, and the feasibility of, the potential installation.

“During summer 2020, local social enterprise RIG Arts, with artist Tragic O’Hara, worked with the local community (116 people were engaged) to provide creative activities and discussions around local history and stories, and what would make a good piece of public art and why.

“Artists brought the use of local cycling, walking and wheeling routes into the discussion to help embody a shared vision of a healthier, more attractive Inverclyde for everyone.

“A large proportion of those consulted felt that a public artwork should draw inspiration from, and celebrate Inverclyde as a unique place and that it should be interactive, tactile, kinetic, changing; it should enhance the environment, and the concept of multiple locations creating a trail was also popular.

“Working with Sustrans, officers will now seek to commission a work or works on the NCN75; artist, art form, and specific location(s) still to be identified. It is intended to have the work(s) in situ by July/August 2021.”