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In Certain Places: Artists and cities

Cities of less than 250,000, sometimes referred to as micro cities, facilitate a greater access to stakeholders and gatekeepers, producing relationships that can have an impact on development. Quick’s body of research allows him to act as a broker between artist and the city, enabling ICP’s longitudinal project to influence the long-term development of its public spaces.

Since inviting Jeppe Hein to create a temporary work for Preston Flag Market, the space has become a focal point for ICP’s research. Elena Goukassian commented in Sculpture Magazine (November, 2012) that this work “transformed Preston’s central square from a short cut to other destinations into a true public gathering space”. Invitations to form new partnerships with organisations inside and outside the city have resulted.

In 2008 Quick worked as a lead artist on the winning submission to the Landscape Institutes International Competition for the redesign of the Flag Market. He then contributed to the City’s Urban Design Team’s successful Heritage Lottery Fund application for the Preston Remembers Project, which focused on the redevelopment of Sir Gilberts Scots Cenotaph. In addition, ICP‘s symposium Monument and the Changing City supported this Heritage Lottery Fund application.

Since then ICP have commissioned artists Jenny Steel and Laurence Payot to explore how people use and inhabit the Flag Market and their relationship to the City’s Cenotaph, adding to the archive of information about the space; its histories and functions.

This continuous relationship has resulted in ICP having been invited to work with Preston City Councils Planning team to produce an Area Action Plan, which will influence the development of Preston’s public spaces up to 2026.