CHARTIST NEWPORT

Announcing:

CHARTIST NEWPORT














website | blog | flickr

A Newport Museum and Art Gallery project to document the heritage of Chartism and public art in Newport and South Wales. | Produced by Roger Cucksey, Keeper of Art, Newport Museum and Art Gallery & John Wilson, Guest Curator.

Commencing with documentation of the the Newport Chartist Mural, we move on to explore the wider context of public art in Newport in which the popular celebration of Chartism is to the fore, and then further afield to look at the wider landscape of Chartism and its commemorative landmarks in Monmouthshire and South Wales as a whole, and finally a consideration of the historical interpretation of Chartism. | Read more: Project outline

The project was seeded with funding support from Modus and Public Art Wales in order to commence the Newport Chartist Mural Documentation exercise.

We are seeking new project partners to continue to build our online resources.

mural | public art | landmarks | history | resources


John Wilson, Guest Curator, Chartist Newport | 13 Oct 2007


CHARTIST LANDMARKS

We commence our online resources with an exercise in Mapping Chartist Newport:


















Some selected Chartist landmarks - highlighting the geography of Chartism in Newport, the industrial valleys and iron-districts of Monmouthsire and the "Hills", plus some wider South Wales connections. [Work in progress]


[1] A geography of Chartism: From Westgate Square to the Chartist Caves
( v_0.1 | 10 Oct 2007)

Visualization:

* chartistprism
* flickr map
* postcard
* desktop
* tags



[2] The signs on the street: Chartist prism

Defamiliarizing the landmark

* chartistprism

Walking the street - we tend to pass by everyday familiar landmarks; despite their size they dissolve from our very sight. Public statues and other forms of public art are no exception - the noble becomes a traffic island, we do not enquire into his past deeds.


















Chartism - the signs on the street of a memorialized past - in public statues, memorials, plaques and other forms of public art. The signs on the street. Fragmented signs and space; or, heroic narrative and place of Chartism? Sites of memory and forgetting, sedition and freedom, power and struggle.



















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NEWS | Art: Review to consider digital plan

Caption | SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME? Guest curator John Wilson and Keeper of art Roger Cucksey, look at Newport Museum and Art Gallery's first on-line exhibition, Documenting the City, in April this year


Art: Review to consider digital plan | South Wales Argus, 3 Oct 2007


Excerpt:

Newport has a wealth of art treasures, including work by LS Lowry, Sir Stanley Spencer, Dame Laura Knight and Hans Feibusch.

But with space at a premium, just five per cent of the gems are on public display.

Now public watchdogs are to look at how to increase public access to the collection, which could include virtual viewing.

Cllr Davies suggested the authority's culture and recreation scrutiny forum should examine the issue. (...)

Earlier this year, we reported how Newport's Keeper of Art, Roger Cucksey, and Guest curator, John Wilson, launched the gallery's first ever on-line exhibition, Documenting the City.

Mr Cucksey told the Argus he hoped the council would be able to offer the financial support to continue online archiving.

This in-depth review is likely to consider whether parts of the collection could be digitised and made available on-line.

A final report is not expected to go to cabinet member Councillor Ron Jones until next April. (...)

Read the full text here | Argus online version here

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