Riverlight is a major residential-led mixed-use development on a five-acre industrial estate close to Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the River Thames. Around 60% of the scheme will be designated as public open space. Futurecity developed a culture and placemaking strategy that explored the idea of a new creative district for Nine Elms, the relocation of the RCA to a new gallery on site and major commissions for leading contemporary artists Kate Davis, Peter Newman and Simon & Tom Bloor.
All of the commissions have been developed over a number of years in close collaboration with Gillespies, the landscape architects of the scheme. Taking the themes of water and light and the possibilities for play within the public realm, newly commissioned sculptural works encourage passers by and residents alike to interact with, observe and enjoy the changing light and landscape at Riverlight. In addition to the permanent works, a changing programme of exhibitions will be on display at StudioRCA, a new project space for Nine Elms located at One Riverlight Quay, where students from the Royal College of Art will present artworks and work in progress. Riverlight is a pioneering development that has put art and culture at its heart. Its launch in October 2014 marks a key moment in the evolution of Nine Elms, a new cultural district for London.
1. Terra Ludi, Simon & Tom Bloor
This large art and landscape commission explores informal play through the use of unexpected materials. Two elements make up the artwork, a geometric rocky outcrop and a large tree trunk sculpture, referencing natural materials but created in concrete and bronze. The second intervention is a network of concrete stepping-stones, to be scattered along the Thames Riverside and Nine Elms Lane, encouraging an exploration of the public realm, sitting, playing and breaking the geometry of the formal landscape.
Simon and Tom Bloor’s work uses a range of media to explore moments of utopian potential and flawed idealism, crossing the boundaries between art, design and social history.
2. Light & Water, Kate Davis, in collaboration with David Moore
This commission responds to the subject of the sparkling, changing light of the river, bringing elements of it into the trees, landscape, lighting and water features of Riverlight. Working with landscape architects Gillespies, three interventions provide a series of highly polished steel arcs set in to the ground, a small mirror polished tree house and a series of water and light features, which enhance navigation through the river side park. The artworks will be revealed and hidden as the seasons pass, bringing reflection and light, as if from the river Thames directly into the new river side landscape.
Kate Davis and David Moore live and work between London and Edinburgh . Both teach sculpture at the Royal College of Art and The University of Edinburgh respectively. In 2010 they started working under the collective banner ‘ME-WE Productions’ and have undertaken to work collaboratively on commissions, exhibitions and artists residencies.
3. Tidal Forms: Skystation, Peter Newman
Skystation is an interactive public sculpture, inspired by Le Corbusier’s LC4 chaise longue, that also acts as a piece of public seating. Its circular form sits, a drop of mercury in the Riverlight landscape, reflecting sky, light and architecture. Its contours fit the reclining human form and encourage contemplation of the space above. An object to be observed and used, Skystation has the incidental effect of bringing its users’ heads into close proximity, thereby making conversation between strangers almost inevitable.
British artist Peter Newman has been making photographs, sculptures, paintings and video installations that address the human relationship to space and modernity.