Methods

Switch Stance will harness specific resurfacing and large-scale mural technologies to create site and time-specific artworks that inspire users to ask themselves what constitutes public space, and why? The project will ultimately result in several site-specific photo and text-based artworks on concrete surfaces at each partner site. The images will not be immediately visible; they will be covered by a surface that will degrade over time, as skate-boarders repeatedly glide over them . Each installation will be accompanied by public workshops and discussion opportunities, enabling local residents and site users to interact with artists and researchers exploring and advocating for a contemporary conception of the commons, expressed on a local and international level.

Project development includes several phases over 12 months; materials science research (prototype development and testing) and logistics (partner/site identification) – 3 months, local content curation (focus groups with skate-park users) – 3 months, project production (image transfer, surface treatment) – 2-4 months, and documentation/analysis – 2 months. By funding the first iteration of a project intended for multiple sites, the ECF can support new participatory urban art co-created between public art professionals and groups that use and contribute to public spaces, on a daily basis.

Prototype Research

Several stages of project development can occur concurrently. The first months of work time will be devoted to materials research and local partner identification. The surface coating used for the project will be an erasable multi-layer polymer. This coating will cover original imaging applied to the walls and floor of the skatepark via CNC engraving and filling (graphic concrete), embedded welded drawings, photo transfer, or on-site painting or printing (via stains, pigments, & dyes). After getting feedback from site users and potential funders on these alternatives, I will select an image-making technique and formulate a degradable surface/paint capable of temporarily hiding these images. Care will be taken to avoid using urethanes that create a slippery surface hindering skaters’ activities.
Content

Each production phase will include community meetings co-hosted with local partner organisations. Different local stakeholders will be invited to contribute ideas and content to the artwork: street artists, graphic designers, community organizers, and inhabitants will be solicited to come up with images and messages, potentially through a contest format. In each site, the artwork will link up with other efforts to identify and preserve public space. For example, Switch Stance at New Bird, Liverpool can potentially involve working with the skaters to protect their site from sale to private interests, by the local council .

The visual outcomes revealed at each location will be co-designed by myself and community members. Potential subjects will vary while broadly addressing questions of access to public space. These may include local histories, personalities, statistics, geographic information, and visual forms suggested by existing site users. Visuals can include links or QR codes pointing to online content, promoting local skating culture and relevant campaigns involved in advocacy for public spaces.

Once the images are installed and the surface is airbrushed in place, I will invite skaters and bikers to practice their moves on-site. As they roll over each park’s bowls, ramps, and wedges, they will slowly erase the coating, literally drawing different kinds of marks upon the ground. Over several weeks these movements will cause the layers of dark paint to erode, removing the coating, and enabling initially “hidden” images and messages to appear. The uniform expanse will be transformed into a vibrant interactive drawing. As the physical tricks undertaken in the space gain additional visual and temporal dimensions, landing a jump in place will also mean making a mark in time.

Outcomes

At each site, project documentation will be an integral aspect of the installation. Time-lapse videos will show text-photo-murals emerging over time, by the combined random and intentional movements of skateboarders at each location. Accessible online, these allow viewers from different sites to see the project unfold. A video teaser from the first project site will be used to promote the project and to attract interest and funding for future interventions and applications.

Images from one site can be potentially projected onto walls next to other skatepark locations involved in the project, during local celebrations and special events. Real-time video relays could allow skaters at different sites to show off tricks and send messages with a shared language of mark making. This interactive database of documentation and feedback could generate data for future research projects analysing participatory art. Physical exchanges between youth involved in different editions of the project could also occur, with a group of skateboarders from England visiting a site in Italy and vice versa. In addition to making and discovering different local representations of public space, project participants may even be able to experience how such meaning-making takes shape in other cultural contexts. Once the project begins, various aspects could also be used in other kinds of short-term cultural initiatives, including workshops and festivals.

Potential
The project asks us to consider who belongs in public spaces and who decides how we can use them? Public space is defined differently in different cultural contexts; it is not a constant notion but is shaped and reshaped constantly within democratic societies. Conflict over the nature and role of public space is not just inevitable; it can even be productive. By involving urban youth in redefining public space through a low-threshold form of visual expression, we hope to catalyse dialogues over place making between different members of society.

Whereas some associate skateboarding with property damage to curbs, benches, and performance venues, the sport is also a crowd-pleaser and promotes positive public health outcomes . The decision to allow skateboarders to access public land is a political display of tolerance for different individual and communal practices and forms of expression. Switch Stance enables park users to showcase their contributions to public places with ornate ever-evolving site-specific drawings that attract positive attention from other community members.

Rather than defining rigid norms limiting how public space should be used and when and why it should be preserved, we believe that communities need to create and strengthen spaces for innovation and exploration. By asking questions about the usage of public space together with local partner organizations, we hope to inspire users to take ownership of collective spaces and to claim these sites for the common good.