RMJM Art Commissioning
Art and Architecture
Jennifer Douglas: Bishopbriggs Underpass
Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire
November 09
For people living in a community, such as Bishopbriggs, ease of access around the town is important for enabling not just safe but beautiful or reflective routes to enhance public spaces and thus experience of the town. However, 'challenging' sites such as Bishopbriggs Underpass is a key...
Art and Architecture
Jennifer Douglas: Bishopbriggs Underpass
Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire
November 09
For people living in a community, such as Bishopbriggs, ease of access around the town is important for enabling not just safe but beautiful or reflective routes to enhance public spaces and thus experience of the town. However, 'challenging' sites such as Bishopbriggs Underpass is a key route which has been overshadowed by vandalism and a lack of good lighting, resulting in lack of use throughout day and night.
East Dunbartonshire Council commissioned RMJM Architects and Artist Jennifer Douglas to develop a proposal for the underpass, which would respond to and enhance the underpass - offering the public not just a safe, accessible route but offer a creative impact that illustrates Bishopbriggs from an artist's perspective.
Jennifer Douglas is an established artist (represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead) who was selected because her practice is very playful, intuitive and site responsive. She studied Fine Art at the University of Newcastle followed by a Master of Fine Art Degree at The Glasgow School of Art. She has exhibited throughout the UK and overseas including The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; Tramway, Glasgow; Hales Gallery, London; Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing and Tensta Konstall, Stockholm.
Jennifer has created a new site specific work called 'Underland' for the Bishopbriggs Underpass, an appropriate title that illustrates the artist's response to the town. The drawings create a new landscape of the historical, the natural, the architecture and the 'forgotten' or 'hidden' aspects of Bishopbriggs. Some are familiar (the watertower) and some are more abstract (the triangle shape forms, reflective of the bungalow rooftops that are so prevalent in Bishopbriggs) or Jennifer's dots and lines of differing length and thickness, a response perhaps to the library that was once a sewing school. The references are just a few that have been deconstructed in ways that enable us, as viewers to see a more ambiguous and magical view of the town and its geographical context.
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