City Sites

City Sites is an innovative visual art employment project developed by Carclew Youth Arts, which employs visual artists to work under the mentorship of professional public artists. Based on the highly acclaimed Gallery37 project in Chicago, USA, the City Sites project is designed to provide intensive training in the Visual Arts for artists between 17 and 26. Since the first project began in January of 1997, City Sites has employed over 330 visual artists.

1. What is City Sites?

2. Past Participants speak of their experiences of City Sites

3. Regional Sites

4. Graduate Projects

5. About Commissioning affordable public artworks

6. The City Sites Product range

WHAT IS CITY SITES

City Sites is an inventive art, employment and mentorship project providing South Australians with an opportunity to further their artistic skills through employment in the visual arts. Carclew Youth Arts developed this unique project as a response to the career development needs of visual artists. City Sites employs visual artists to work under the mentorship of professional artists to produce public artworks including mosaic and jarrah park benches, drinking fountains, murals, paving features and more.

City Sites is an exceptional public arts project, giving participants an insight into the working life of a full-time artist. The program establishes vital networks between visual artists, commissioning bodies (City Councils, Government Agencies, local businesses) and the community.

All participants aged between 17 and 26 years of age (inclusive) are employed as trainee artists under the mentorship of professional artists. Together they design and manufacture public artworks specifically for each client's individual design brief. Paid employment for the trainees is a key principle of City Sites. The artists learn skills in a variety of art forms and also undertake research and extensive consultation with clients - from initial discussions of the client brief, to the design and presentation of concepts to the final creation of the artwork. These processes introduce the artists to skills necessary in gaining employment as professional practitioners.

The increasing demand for places in the annual project has meant the talent of artists accepted into the City Sites program is extremely high. Since the project's inception in 1997, over 330 artists have participated in the project.

City Sites is usually held in Adelaide in January of each year. We are currently undertaking a review of City Sites, and will not be running a project in January 2008. Regional projects are conducted in country South Australia and various spin off or graduate projects are also held throughout the year, on an as needs basis.

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PAST PARTICIPANTS SPEAK OF THEIR EXPERIENCES OF CITY SITES

The other thing I love about City Sites is that it makes young people realise what they are capable of doing right now. I believe too many people spend too much time focusing on what they will become and what they will achieve tomorrow and I believe that tomorrow is always today because today is when things happen. You are capable of creating something amazing today and tomorrow you will be able to create something magnificent because of what you created today. And that is what City Sites is like. It makes the most of what each artist can offer and by the end of it we have achieved something worthwhile and we can show that by all the work that is located around Adelaide. But it doesn't stop there; the influence that City Sites has had on the young participants is endless. When I started City Sites I did not know in which direction I should go and what to do with myself without direction from someone else. Now I find myself in the position where I can choose to take a number of art related jobs because doors have started to open. A couple of these jobs have been created by people I did City Sites with. We keep in contact and have built a little network which keeps on expanding... We have learnt to be active and reactive. We no longer wait for things to happen because we have realised that whatever exists in our imagination can become our reality.
Doris Ayala, 10 May 2000

Projects like City Sites are a significant gesture toward a culture where public art is a given, constantly growing, embracing emerging artists and new ideas. Even the choice of workshop venue is significant; working in such a public space makes the project even more accessible. Furthermore, City Sites creates an exemplary model for arts mentorship, creating a zone where the participating artists can experience every stage of the process of creating a public work of art in a wholly professional way, without being dropped in the deep end completely. The atmosphere of support is attributable largely to the tutors, and I'd like to thank John, Mike, Dan, Lyn, Fran and Jimmy for stepping in with advice, technical tips and moral support when needed, and letting us go when the ideas, paint and tile shards were flying. The continuing success of City Sites has created an ideal situation where new, emerging artists have the opportunity to work on ambitious projects that would be otherwise out of reach. At the same time, City Sites' proven track record assures the clients commissioning the works a successful outcome.... In a climate where public art is usually accompanied by bureaucratic processes, committees, public liability insurance and much ticking of boxes, the efficiency of the City Sites process is a credit to Carclew, the tutors and the participating artists. There's a gutsiness about the whole thing, that approaches reckless optimism: the artists receive their briefs and groups of disparate talents are thrown together on the first day; we meet our clients a couple of hours later, then spend three days furiously drawing and designing, meet the clients again, then take off. The fast and furious approach guarantees a freshness and energy innate to the work, but never at the expense of polish and resolution.
Roy Ananda, February 2004

One of the main reasons I applied to City Sites was to connect with people from different artistic backgrounds and to diversify my own skill set. Our small team alone covered a huge range of practices. We had painters, writers, teachers, break dancers, graf artists and electronic music makers to name a few. Watching the different ways that people approached the same brief was both interesting and refreshing and I found this to be an invaluable learning experience.
Ryan O'Connor, 4 February 2005

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REGIONAL SITES

Carclew Youth Arts and Country Arts SA have a long and successful history of delivering arts workshop projects to regionally isolated young people. Both organisations are committed to expanding artistic and creative opportunities for children and young people in South Australia. Each year the City Sites team, in close consultation with local communities and partnership with Country ArtSA, travels to regional areas of South Australia to create Regional Sites.

The main purpose of Regional Sites is to bring the ideals of the City Sites projects to country areas. Local professional artists are employed as mentors alongside other tutors from the City Sites project. The commissions for regional projects are taken from the local area with councils, local businesses and community organisations seeking the benefit of employing local young artists to work on permanent public artworks that enhance their local environment.

The Carclew team aims to make the project relevant to the individual community, not merely replicate the City project in a country context. The Regional Sites project enables young artists from regional communities to experience working on public art projects under the mentorship of professional artists without having to travel to Adelaide.

The Regional Sites project, a partnership with Country Arts SA and Carclew Youth Arts is held in a nominated region for 2-3 years. The project will then relocate to a different regional area. The first regional project was held in April 2001 on the West Coast of South Australia. In April 2002, Regional City Sites relocated to Mount Gambier in the South East, and was held in Penola in April of 2003.

For more information please go to the River Sites page.

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GRADUATE PROJECTS

Through increasing community awareness and support of the City Sites project, there is a growing demand for larger scale artworks from commissioning bodies. Larger works are sometimes unable to be designed and manufactured within the strict month time line of the January project so City Sites has also developed the Graduate projects which are undertaken at various times of the year on an as needs basis. Projects are accepted as Graduate projects if there is seen to be further professional and artistic development opportunities for the artists involved.

These projects enable Carclew to re-employ many of the artists who have successfully graduated from previous January projects. (Providing that they are still under the age of 27 at the time of the commencement of the project). This enables further skill development in practical areas of the negotiation, design and manufacture of larger scale artworks to strict budgets and time lines. Past examples of Graduate projects include a large mosaic paving feature for the City of Holdfast Bay and the award-winning Goodwood Community Centre works.

Goodwood Community Centre Project (2000)

Adelaide architectural firm, Hames Sharley Pty Ltd was awarded a Commendation for Art and Architecture from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, in their annual awards for their design of the Goodwood Community Centre.

Seven visual artists, all graduates of the Carclew Youth Arts's City Sites January projects produced a series of large scale public artworks for Goodwood Community Centre in conjunction with the City of Unley and Hames Sharley. These artworks were an integral part of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects award's submission.

The three dimensional Black Forest, constructed of different metals, vividly re-creates the extensive Eucalypt Forest that dominated the Goodwood landscape at time of settlement. The multi coloured Whirly Gig symbolises the bringing together of the community. The window treatments in the library depict early transport, advertising and the Royal Show grounds that are such a feature of the area. The painted mural celebrates local history and architecture.
Working alongside professional tutors the artists had to liaise with architects Hames Sharley Pty Ltd and Unley City Council representatives to create the award winning public artworks.

"Extensive negotiations between Hames Sharley, Council and Carclew were successfully able to resolve issues of siting, aesthetics and engineering, while still allowing the young artists the freedom of expression so vital and integral to any public art installation. It is to the credit of all parties that the measure of the art works ultimate success is recognition by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects," said Christopher Colyer, Community Development Officer, The City of Unley.This project received funding through the Australia Council for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation committee.

Holdfast Bay Project (2001)

Liaising with Hemisphere landscape architects and cultural planners, and the City of Holdfast Bay, the City Sites team produced two mosaic bench panels and a 9 square metre mosaic paving feature for the Jimmy Melrose Park. (A comprehensive upgrade of the area between Moseley Square and the Broadway, Glenelg.)

Jimmy Melrose was a famous South Australian aviator who achieved national prominence through his flying achievements in the early 20th Century. The artists researched Jimmy Melrose's aviating history and commemorated this by including many features of his achievements in the design elements of their work. Fourteen pavers will balance and highlight the central feature image of Jimmy Melrose- the aviator. Each paver will detail a piece of his life eg. The number 13 - a significant number in Jimmy Melrose's life, a flying cat - depicts both his humorous side and passion for flying as during his childhood he attempted to make his pet cat fly and a portrait of Jimmy Melrose - the aviator. The aerial view of the design was agreed upon due to Jimmy's keen interest in aerial photography from a young age. The design gives the impression of looking down from the aircraft. The background colours represent the night sky, ocean, sand, beach, land and vegetation. The isobars represent air movement. These influence both the changing ecosystem and air travel and flow into the pilots' long white scarf.

Unley Museum / Patawalonga catchment water care pavement mosaic. (2003)

The mosaic aims to illustrate the benefits of water conservation for plant, animal and human life in the City of Unley. Water is a finite resource and how we use the water we have now, affects the quality and quantity of water available for future use.

To emphasise the cyclic nature of water in our environment, our design consists of two concentric circles.

The inner circle represents the bio-diversity possible in a healthy urban catchment. Fish, reptiles, water birds, insects, amphibians, macropods and platypus are examples of animal life that once lived, or still exist, in the Unley catchment area.

The outer circle portrays the journey water takes through the environment. Moisture evaporates into the atmosphere from the sea, lakes, rivers and land through the process of evapotranspiration. It is returned to the land through precipitation. Creeks and rivers are shown flowing through a landscape dotted with Yackas, River Red Gums and Grey Box, all species indigenous to the Unley area.

A windmill represents our use of groundwater. The Murray River is depicted winding through irrigated agricultural land. A pipeline takes water from the Murray to the built environment (Unley) via reservoirs. Rainwater tanks are included next to buildings to show an alternative source of water available to Unley residents. Storm water runoff from the built environment ultimately ends up in the ocean, shown also, and the quality of storm water impacts on marine life in the Gulf.

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COMMISSIONING – Affordable Public Art works.

Do you want to add colourful, original and meaningful public artwork to your community or business premises? Have you considered mosaic paving, park benches, murals or contemporary café tables? Do you want to support the career development of talented, young South Australian visual artists?

The City Sites project has become well known for the high quality public artwork it produces - functional works such as mosaic tables and seating, painted benches, street paving, murals and banners. Young artists aged between 17 and 26 years old produce the work under the mentorship of professional artists.

Many organisations have become involved, these include the Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure – Public Transport Division, the City of Adelaide, Land Management Corporation, South Austraiian Housing Austhority, City of Unley, City of Burnside, City of Salisbury, Salisbury RSL, City of Marion, District Council of Mount Barker, Centenary of Federation, City of Port Adelaide/Enfield, City of Norwood, Payneham and St Peters, City of West Torrens, City of Holdfast Bay, Wattle Range District Council, Robe District Council, DAIS, the Office for the Southern Suburbs, the National Motor Museum and many more.

These organisations recognise the career and network benefits for young people through participation in City Sites. They also recognise the advantages of featuring high quality artwork in their environment. All artwork is created specifically for the clients, from a brief they generate. Thus the artwork designed reflects the aims and ideas of the client brief.

"The City of Salisbury has been a City Sites’ client for over 5 years. City Sites has provided several significant outcomes for this Council, those being the development opportunities for artists, the significant educational benefits for council staff and elected members, high quality artworks whilst also assisting with the development of a significant working partnership between this Council and Carclew. The City of Salisbury has a long-term commitment to seeing art in the public realm and to the implementation of other arts and cultural initiatives within this City. Projects like City Sites provide opportunities to engage emerging artists and new ideas to be incorporated into this commitment. The continuing success of City Sites has created an ideal situation where this council and emerging young artists have the opportunity to work on ambitious projects that would be otherwise out of reach.City Sites has a proven track record and has continually provided successful outcomes for this Council." Nichola Kapitza, Manager Culture and Youth Planning, The City of Salisbury, May 2005.

The project provides a platform for the work of young people to be publicly valued by business, local government and the broader community. The commissions are real, as are the expectations of the clients. The project aims to give a "face" to the arts for the commissioning bodies, as they are practically involved in the creation of their artworks. For the young artists the brief is real, with the public artworks created on show to the public permanently.

The artworks provide the young artists with employment and input into their community. From previous projects, our clients have also identified other benefits. Members of the younger community identify with the artworks as the artworks have been created by their peers. Consequently there have been minimal instances of graffiti or tagging of our works since 1997, even in highly targeted areas. The artworks create a positive, inviting space, which make people feel safe and welcome.

The pieces remain in the community after the completion of the project as a reminder of the importance of young people and their contribution to the community. In this way, the benefits provided by the project endure long after its completion.

Expressions of interest from organisations and businesses regarding commissions of artwork are always welcome.

While we offer a range of functional art, we are also happy to discuss the specific needs of our clients in planning the types of artwork that might be created.

We hope you consider becoming involved in the City Sites project. If you do, you will be providing support for the development of young South Australian artists while also enhancing your environment.

City Sites Product range:

Mosaic Paving Blocks: Porcelain (solid colour and slip resistant) tiled mosaic, with galvanised steel frame on concrete block measuring 40cm x 60cm.
Mosaic Drinking Fountains: Concrete, conical base with stainless steel fittings.
Jarrah & Mosaic Benches: Glazed tile mosaic inlay with recycled jarrah surround. Galvanised steel frame.
Digitally printed fabric banners – dimensions negotiated.
Murals: Marine ply pained panels sized 1200 x 2400mm with optional graffiti coat. Other dimensions can be negotiated.

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Other Products

The product listed above, are the core range of functional artwork available. However we are happy to discuss the specific needs of individual organisations to plan the creation of other pieces. These may include painted benches, mosaic tables, and mosaic murals.

Commissions include consultation, design, manufacture, materials, artist wages, project management and delivery. Installation of products is not included.

Contact

Belinda Powles - Artistic Advisor, City Sites