Artist Marcela’s cast-iron will to build on the city’s assets

9:38am Wednesday 8th July 2009

By Jim Greenhalf

In April, the Argentine-born artist Marcela Livingston was invited to give a 20-minute talk to the joint chambers of commerce of Leeds and Bradford.

“They give a lunch for members of the construction industry twice a year. I was the after-dinner mint,” she said. She was joking.

Marcela, who came to Bradford 20 years ago from London, was very pleased to have the opportunity to talk to businessmen and women, partly on the subject of how, in a recession, firms would need to engage in public sector activities to generate work.

Much of the public art she does – sculptures, railings, gates – involves the use of a form of malleable cast iron.

“Cast iron is very British. It’s the material that engineers used for the development of the Empire. And its nearly indestructible,” she said. She works out the designs and passes them on to a foundry for construction.

Examples of her work are to be found here in Bradford, with The Sphere, and in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Manchester, Barnsley and Gateshead, home of Anthony Gormley’s landmark structure The Angel Of The North.

“Someone hung a huge football shirt on it. That act came from the people and showed that they claimed it as their own. That’s when it became accepted.

“Bradford needs to own whatever is done. Anything that can provide a unifying influence means using local people. You’ve got to trust that the city has got enough within itself to make the change happen,” she said.

Her £20,000 sculpture off Manchester Road is an example of what she means. Trident, the regeneration partnership, and social housing provider Incommunities, commissioned the piece to represent the living street.

Marcela worked with residents and children from two local schools. From that came the design for a giant latticework shape, inset with optic lights.

“People said it wouldn’t last because in their experience nothing good has ever survived.

“But every time I go there, people say they love it in the evenings because it’s soothing, the lights change colour. There are seats around it. They have got something other people haven’t got.

Her ideas for transforming inner- city spaces are many and various. For example, she wants to see metal roller blinds replaced with folding metal shutters that have attractive designs and lighting.

“Roller blinds of the kind you can see on Ivegate are the death of business because they don’t allow people the pleasure of window shopping.

“If you walk into a space where you bash into shutters it doesn’t help your dignity. You are being told that you cannot be trusted. A folding shutter, with lights behind it to make beautiful shadows, could make a difference.”

Bradford’s new City of Film status is a golden opportunity for the kind of attractive, imaginative and durable public art Marcela has in mind for her adopted city.

In Paris, the city associated with art, you can find street furniture – lights and street signs – based on sculptures by Picasso and Salvador Dali.

Similarly, Bradford could have lights and signs themed on films and movie-making. After all, the curved glass frontage of the National Media Museum is based on a strip of film.

None of Marcela’s ideas could be termed art for art’s sake. The notion of the artist, the designer or the developer egotistically imposing his vision on everyone else, is anathema to her because, she believes, in the long run it doesn’t work.

“Accessible public art can make an environment where people want to spend time; that adds to a city’s self-esteem. The biggest difference you can make, though, is setting aside a proper maintenance budget. It’s not sexy to spend on maintenance, but it’s the bottom line. In any process of regeneration maintenance is what allows it to continue to exercise its influence,” she added.

Many years ago, David Hockney declared that buildings should be beautiful because they had the effect of making people feel better about where they were. This is precisely the case being made by Marcela.

“If you’re given something beautiful to look at, other than a set of bars, that’s beautifully lit, you feel happier, more confident.

“I love this place. I live here. I invest here. I believe we have all got to support what’s happening and take advantage of a city that is rare in its mix of people and to do something that other cities don’t have,” she said.