David Harding
dgaharding@hotmail.com
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Introduction
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About Public Art Index
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5-YEAR DRIVE-BY
Douglas Gordon in 29 Palms.
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MEANWHILE ARTIST
Recalling the work of Jamie McCullough.
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THE SCOTIA NOSTRA
Socialisation and Glasgow artists
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PUBLIC ART IN THE BRITISH NEW TOWNS
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MEMORIES AND VAGARIES
The development of social art practices in Scotland.
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MACLOVIO ROJAS
Social sculpture in Tijuana.
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Public Art - Contentious Term and Contested Practice
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Art and Social Context
Contextual art practice in education.
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VENICE VERNISSAGE - 2003
A visit to the biennale.
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MULTI-STORY
Art and asylum seekers.
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CULTURAL DEMOCRACY Ð CRAIGMILLAR STYLE
30 years of the arts in an Edinburgh housing estate.
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A SEA WITHOUT BOATS*
A visit to Havana 2005.
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• GLENROTHES TOWN ARTIST 1968-78*
Chapter 6 of memoir.
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 • Page 8
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PASSAGES*
a suicide, a monument, a film
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page 4

An important development for me took place in the early seventies when I first met John Latham and Barbara Steveni who had founded, 'The Artist Placement Group' (APG) in the sixties. They had spent much effort in trying to persuade the civil service and local government agencies that artists could bring their creativity to bear on policy and planning. This was best described as the artist as 'the incidental person'. In this role artists could cross over the rigid barriers within institutions and bring new perceptions to bear on how these institutions operated. Barbara had been trying to interest new town development corporations in the UK in the ideas of APG. The Scottish new towns invited her to come to Glenrothes to address a meeting of senior figures from all the new towns in Scotland. When John Coghill had finished his address to the meeting on the role of the town artist and his own vision of what that could be, Barbara declared that what he had said was exactly what APG has set out to achieve. This was an important moment for me. I felt I had in some ways been working in isolation. APG had already organised a number of artist placements in settings such as British Steel, Broadmoor Hospital, the National Bus Company among others and, more significantly for me, had developed critical theory to support such work. A mutually supportive relationship with John and Barbara was formed at this moment which still continues today.

My work in Glenrothes began, intentionally on my part, slowly. I needed to feel my way around the place, the town and its people, but also the structure of the Development Corporation. I felt the doubters in the corporation were cynically waiting for some large statement of modernist abstraction and the inevitable ensuing controversy to be able to say, 'I told you so.' I had decided to go slowly and quietly and attempt to make my presence felt almost as an insinuation. As there was no budget set aside for art, I had to find out where I could fit into the different building projects that were going on and acquire money from them. To begin with I was able to use monies for play and recreation within housing projects which resulted, to begin with, in what could be termed 'play sculptures.' These began as rather safe design solutions but as time went on I was able to expand the concepts for these to become iconic markers and more meeting places for children to play around rather than on or with. This I suppose was a first breakthrough into something more profound and the architects were, in most cases, willing to co-operate. I wanted, as far as possible, to use the material of the building site so I limited my ideas to the use of bricks and concrete. I had begun to use concrete when I was at art school and through the years in Glenrothes I managed to expand the range of its possibilities for making art. Also using these materials meant that I was always in some way collaborating with the skills and experience of the workmen on the building sites. This was fundamentally important to me with regard to how I perceived my role. The main construction material of civil engineers is concrete and they were the most sympathetic and understanding of the design teams, coming to me early in the design stage. I created patterned reliefs for the large wing walls of pedestrian underpasses developing the use of colour and pushing the limits of what could be achieved in concrete casting techniques. I would subtly include political and social elements in the imagery and sometimes got the workmen on site to add their names to the moulds recognising their contribution to making the work. Eventually I gained the confidence of the senior architects, engineers and planning people to such an extent that I was more or less allowed simply to get on with it. I was working with design teams who would build money into the design specifications and contracts for my work and, as there was a time gap before any final drawings would be needed on site, I was able to allow ideas to fertilise over a longer period. This often allowed me to respond to the reality of what was being built.

'Work', pedestrian underpass, concrete relief. 1970 'Work', pedestrian underpass, concrete relief. 1970 'Work', pedestrian underpass, concrete relief. 1970
'Work', pedestrian underpass, concrete relief. 1970
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I used the pavement and road building budgets of the civil engineers to cast poems into paving slabs which were then placed at bus stops and telephone kiosks. In order to fit within a 2'x 2' or 3'x 2'paving slab I decided to use short, contemporary poems by Scottish writers. The first group of poems were, Douglas Young's, "The Last Lauch", Sydney Goodsir Smith's, "Loch Leven", and Hugh MacDiarmid's, "The Little White Rose". I typed them out and sent them to each of the poets to ask for their permission and, if given, to get them to proof-read what I had taken from poetry books. Young I knew had taught at St. Andrew's University so I sent his letter there. I received a reply from his wife, Clara, in which she said that Douglas was teaching at the University of North Carolina, where he was Professor of Classics, and that she would send my letter on to him. Some weeks later I read that he had died. Wilfred Taylor wrote a piece in 'The Scotsman' on Young in which he described the funeral service in North Carolina when "The Last Lauch" had been the poem recited and went on to say that I had been planning to use Young's poem on the streets of Glenrothes. Without permission of course I could not proceed. Then I received a note from Clara enclosing a letter that Douglas had written to me the night before he died. He had begun by saying that he was delighted that I should use the poem and in a piece of ironic humour wrote, "They cast Pindar's odes in tablets of gold and hung them in the temples so why not have the Fifers walk over mine!" He had typed out the way he preferred the poem laid out and, importantly, spelled.

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David Harding 2005 [Link to Pixelville. Services include design, photography, multimedia and Internet applications, website  development and maintenance.]
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