What is public art today and yesterday?

Join a free guided walking tour starting at the underpass at Southernhay, travelling through Basildon town centre and finishing at Roundacre underpass, both areas hosting sculptures and environmental works by Wendy Taylor.

Care Contractors, is a project exploring public art, its maintenance, commissioning, and fabrication in Basildon. Contractors with Emma Edmondson (sculptor, educator and organiser), Lu Williams (artist, publisher) and Laura Whiting (designer, researcher).

As we travel through Basildon town centre, we will engage in conversation around what was public art yesterday, as we view and discuss a range of public works from traditional public sculpture, to the iconic Basildon Clock and the cast bells in Basildon Bell Tower to name a few. As we stop at each piece of public work, learning a bit about its history and artist, we will also consider what is public art today (and tomorrow) by discussing manifesto points from New Rules for Public Art by public art commissioning agency Situations. Each walking participant will have their own print out of the manifesto, and at the end of the session, everyone will be able to vote on their top 3 manifesto points they feel encompass what public art should be today. A tally will be made and reflected back to the group.

Our walk will start at Wendy Taylors, Compass Bowl (1980) and will include:

Man aspires (1957) by AJ Poole

East Square Bench

Mother and Child (1962) by Maurice Lambert

The Clock (1966) by Douglas Galloway and John Vernon

Concaive Tile Mosaic (1958) by Georffrey Clark

Christ (1968) by T Huxley Jones

Millenium Bell Tower (1999) by John Mowlem Construction

St Martin and beggar (1993) by Peter Foster

King Edgar (???) by Dave Chapple

Wendy Taylors Animal Fresco and Tree Underpasses

And ending at Wendy’s Armillary Sundial

Joining us on this guided walk will be Christine Townley. Christine has a broad range of interests and a passion for many things including equality and justice!

Christine came to Basildon in 1978 to work as a Civil Engineer supervising construction of floodwalls along the river Thames between Fobbing and Canvey

For the first three years of being in Basildon she lived in Brookhouse in the town centre and it was there that she met her partner to be, Martin Wakelin, who was a landscape architect at the Basildon Development Corporation

Martin was one of the early members of Basildon Film Club, he designed the iconic publicity leaflets for the club. Christine and Martin would go to the Towngate every other Friday night to watch a diverse range of world films and then always have a pint or two in the Towngate bar with friends to discuss films and more. The (old) Towngate played a seminal role in their lives

In her spare time Christine was a keen volunteer in the community and played a key role in establishing Basildon Women’s Health group and Basildon Women’s Environmental Network

After 10 years of being an engineer Christine changed direction and worked in adult education supporting women returners and people with poor basic skills in Basildon and across S Essex. She became vice principal at the Thurrock Adult Community College and later Assistant Director at the Basic Skills Agency where she led national education programmes for the Department for Education and Skills

From 2004 to 2016 Christine was Executive Director at Construction Youth Trust a national charity that helped young people into Construction. In recognition of her work championing a diverse workforce National Grid named a Tunnel Boring Machine after her.

Christine was delighted to engage with the Radical Essex Initiative run by Focal Point Gallery and on the back of that got very much more engaged with South Essex in all its guises and since 2020 has been on the Advisory Group at the gallery.

Since retiring Christine has continued to support her community and has worked with a friend to establish Billericay Mens Shed and she helped found Billericay Cycling Campaign. She is passionate about the arts in general and goes to the theatre and galleries in London on a regular basis and she's also passionate about trains and has done several European train holidays.

Christine and Martin had one daughter, Megan, who is a film producer.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Southernhay, Southernhay, Basildon, United Kingdom