Site Specific Art – protecting the artist’s vision

Artist Susanna Heron (see also: Flickr sets) talks through her experiences of being commissioned on public art projects, the pitfalls she encounters and how to get around them. Includes an overview on the rights, roles and responsibilities of commissioners and artists.

Resources:

• Public Art Commissions Part 1
• Public Art Commissions Part 2
• Commissions and the responsibilities they bring – Part 1
• Maintenance:
  Commissions and the responsibilities they bring – Part 2
• Basic of moral Rights & Conservation
• Public Art Organisations
• Public Art Online for information and advice for artists working in public art

Susanna Heron is an artist who has gained international recognition for her collaborations with architects, large-scale site specific works and drawings in shallow engraved relief. Her work is included in public collections internationally and she has had solo exhibitions at the Mead Gallery at Warwick University, Camden Art Centre and Whitechapel Art Gallery amongst others.

She has recently completed  an extensive stone relief for the lecture theatre to the new Sainsbury Laboratory for Plant Sciences in Cambridge Botanical Garden . The building is designed by Stanton Williams Architects and funded by the Gatsby Foundation for Cambridge University. It houses the Cambridge Herbarium.

Works include the facade of the House of Fraser in Bristol 2008, ‘Still Point’ for the garden of The Metropolitan Cathedral Liverpool 2007, an exterior work as part of the refurbishment of  the Brunswick Centre,2007.  She completed major commissions for Mint Hotel Westminster 2003, The Phoenix Initiative, Coventry 1997- 2003,   a 5 storey etched glass wall for the Marunouchi Building in Tokyo 2002, The Sunken Courtyard for Hackney Community College, Hoxton in 1997, The British Embassy in Dublin and the Council Building for the European Union in Brussels in 1995. She was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1999.

Susanna Heron has lived and worked in the East End of London  since 1978 and moved to her current studio in Shoreditch in 2006.

Artist: Susanna Heron / Flickr sets
Art lawyer: Henry Lydiate
Camera: Donald Bousted
Sound: Christian Burnett
Post production: Best Bits Media
Written and produced by: Lubna Gem Arielle
Commissioned by Artquest