Bristol Beacon unveils ‘A New Song For Bristol’ artwork The final expression of Bristol Beacon’s landmark ‘A New Song For Bristol’ project has been unveiled. The 42ft artwork that has been installed on the outside of the building, created by Bristol artist Parys Gardener, takes inspiration from the stories and artistic work submitted to the project. Bristol Beacon launched 'A New Song for Bristol' in 2020 calling on the public to convey their experiences of living in Bristol during the pandemic through words and music. It received hundreds of entries from Bristolians of all ages, communities, and backgrounds, from poetry and letters to fully fledged songs and music videos, spanning a huge range of experiences, topics and emotions. The result was a string of collabo rations between local artists and members of Bristol communities.
“For this project, I was visualising the stories I was being told. A lot of the pieces were vulnerable, and some were heavy and raw, so it was a real challenge and responsibility to find the joy, whilst recognising people’s real lived experience in what was a difficult time.” “I printed out lots of the written submissions and listened to audio tracks. Using highlighters and biros, I started drawing images in my head and created lots of mucky sketches. Over time I could see how to combine stories and bring everything together organically. That’s how I landed on the flowers. They’re organic and alive and beautiful.”
The 'A New Song for Bristol' project has brought about collaborations with a diverse range of Bristol artists and collectives, including Kayla Painter and KALA CHNG, This is the Kit and Bucky, Lady Nade, Javeon, These pieces have now inspired the huge Grove, and composer, musician and artwork which has been applied to the glass associate director of Paraorchestra, Lloyd frontage of the distinctive Bristol Beacon foyer Coleman. building and will be in place for Autumn. Lady Nade created a piece called 'Bristol Is Bristol based artist Parys describes how she Our Playground’ with members of Mini devised her final artwork to celebrate ‘A New Singers, Bristol Beacon’s choir for Key Stage Song For Bristol’: 1 Children, while Grove wrote ‘Lockdown Riddim’ in collaboration with members of Hop e Creative, Bristol Beacon’s creative programme for children in care. 14
