In 2001 artists Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio were selected as resident artists at the new ASDA Wal-Mart Supercentre in Haydon, Swindon, a project funded through Swindon Borough Council’s Percent for Art policy.
The Asda superstore is in the centre of a large new residential area in north Swindon. Both ASDA and the local authority were interested in developing a sense of community in this new area of Swindon, and in making links between ASDA and a new Library adjacent to the store. The artists' brief was to research and develop a high profile temporary artwork reflecting the relationship between the store, its customers and its new, and growing, local community.
Grennan & Sperandio visited Swindon regularly over the course of the following year, meeting a wide range of community groups - from the Technics Keyboard Club to ecology groups, beekeepers and film-makers as well as staff and customers in the store. Their research culminated in a year-long project - Celebrating Swindon consisting of two parts Shifting Gear and Visioning ASDA.
With the collaboration of those they met, the artists drew out personal experiences, messages or thoughts and incorporated these into a series of cartoon-style portraits of Swindon residents, art-directed by participants. Shifting Gear consisted of a selection of portraits painted onto a fully colour-customised double-decker bus travelling along routes between central Swindon and the ASDA store, and a campaign of 7 billboards displayed along the bus routes. A special in-store billboard at ASDA showed full-sized copies of each billboard, linking the store directly with the project.
Visioning Asda was an education project with pupils from the local school in Haydon. Artist Jane Brake worked with a group of Year 10 pupils from Hreod Parkway School to create animated screensavers from images taken with digital cameras in the store. The students’ digital pictures were shown in an exhibition at the new Library, and have a permanent life as animated screen savers on the Library’s computer monitors, and within the school.
The project was widely publicised through the local and national press, flyers in the store and a specially commissioned website designed to extend the audience for the project. To celebrate the project ASDA Wal-Mart produced a series of special Celebrating Swindon limited edition products – mugs, T-shirts and mouse mats – exclusive to the ASDA store in Haydon, and a party for all participants was held with a Celebrating Swindon cake as its centrepiece. |
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