Art Celebrating Boston & South Holland to be Transported

April 12, 2014 - PRLog -- Transported, the Creative People and Places programme from Arts Council England for Boston Borough and South Holland, Lincolnshire, are inviting commissions from artists and designers for a series of custom designs to wrap local FreshLinc lorries

Transported is a community focused arts programme specifically aiming to increase the number of people in Boston Borough and South Holland that are engaging with the arts.  The programme is called Transported because of its overriding aim to ‘transport’ great art to new people and new people to great art, and also because it references Lincolnshire’s long-standing role in transporting goods to and from Europe.

From this came the idea of using the large and portable canvas a lorry could provide as a way to bring art to local people as they commute and use the area’s roads.  To this end, Transported is delighted to be working in partnership with FreshLinc Ltd., a Spalding-based haulage company with four other operating centres in the UK – and an exciting and ambitious commission for artists and designers has just been announced.  The commission is to create a series of custom designs celebrating Boston Borough and South Holland which will appear on a selection of FreshLinc lorries this summer.  The designs will be seen by millions as they pass through the area and beyond, to countries such as Spain, Holland, Belgium and France – FreshLinc lorries travel 125,000 miles in the course of an average year.  The designs will celebrate the area’s unique landscape, culture and people.

Ashley Holland, Commercial Manager of FreshLinc said: “We are so excited and proud to be supporting Transported and having the chance to celebrate the local community and area through the artwork exhibited across the UK and Europe. These trailers will pass hundreds if not thousands of people every day and every time with their own unique backdrop. This is a unique opportunity for both the artist and FreshLinc as a haulage company to encourage future collaboration between artists and industry”.

Transported are also working in collaboration with FreshLinc and local artist Katie Smith on a project called “The View from Here”, exploring how FreshLinc drivers personalise their lorry cabs with mementoes, both as reminders of home and where they have delivered to around the UK and Europe.

Katie Smith said: “I am thrilled to have been commissioned by Transported to work with a group of drivers from the haulage company FreshLinc.  As a socially engaged artist I have a great deal of experience of working with people from a different backgrounds through a broad range of creative projects. This is the first project however where I will be working with people at their place of work; I am expecting this to bring some interesting challenges and exciting creative opportunities and am very much looking forward to collaborating with the drivers.”

Working with Katie, the drivers will be bringing back images and sounds from the locations they travel to which will then form an open exhibition.

Ashley Holland said: “We have had an extremely positive response from our own driver force to engage with Katie Smith and her project to explore their own artistic flare and be part of something not normally associated with the haulage industry. Our drivers may deliver to the same locations day in and day out but the journey and the surrounding scenery changes with the seasons and weather which not everyone realises or more importantly appreciates. We hope we can share this world with the local community through this exhibition”.

The closing date for artists and designers to apply for this commission is Monday 28 April at 9am.  To download the brief, visit www.transportedart.com/jobs-and-commissions.

For more information on Transported, please visit our website at www.transportedart.com or call the office on 01406 701006 or 701013.