张羽洁 /采访、供图

　　Neville Gabie出生于南非，曾就读于英国皇家艺术学院。是目前英国较为活跃的一位公共艺术家。他的作品跨越各种媒介，从雕塑、装置到摄影、视频，关注公共空间发生的变化，并用艺术的方式诠释这些变化。他曾作为南极驻地艺术家，与英国南极科考队同行;也曾参与过大量城市改建过程中的公共艺术驻地项目，如Bristol市中心改建项目、利物浦工业区项目等。他的作品曾经在英国泰特现代艺术馆、日本大都会摄影博物馆等地展出。

　　此次，Neville Gabie被选为伦敦奥林匹克公园唯一一位驻地艺术家，由奥运管理局授权，做为期16个月的驻地艺术创作。他被允许在公园建设期间自由出入奥林匹克公园，近距离观察公园建设过程，并用艺术的方式发现、记录、回应这一区域发生的变化。

　　本刊特邀记者张羽洁在伦敦访学期间采访了艺术家Neville Gabie，并与他进行了有关城市公共艺术的对话。

　　Yujie: As I know you used to create your work in the studio when you are in the Royal College of Art. But after that, you shift your working position from the studio to the public space. I am curious about why you choose to work in public space afterwards? What’s happen?

　　Neville: I studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art from 1986-88. I used to make permanent sculptures often located outside the studio. And then I reach the point I was really disenchanted with that. I found I wanted to respond more instinctively to place, situation and community. I guess I got to be really interested in places, which were going through the moment of changes or flux.

　　I did a really big project in Liverpool in 1999 when I was an artist in resident at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool. I set up this project in a tower block and run it with another artist, Leo Fitzmaurice. Over five years, we had 25artists, writers, and musicians living in this Tower Block with the buildings residents. Every 6 months we opened up the block and people came and saw the works. I learnt so much from that experience. Although the block was located in a very poor and difficult part of the city and the residents there had no experience of the art at all, I learnt that if you spend some time with people and build up the relationship with them, then actually they were very interested in art and what art can do. The experience brought a positive impact to where they live. I think that completely change my perspective of how I wanted to work. Since then I became much more interested in making work which comes out of embracing community and context.

　　I am interested in people living in situations which are undergoing change; Urban regeneration, global climate, a shift in the politics of a place, etc. I am interested in how people make sense of their own environment and come to terms with it. I suppose that is the motivation behind of my works.

　　Yujie:What’s the status of an artist who works in the public space if compared with artist working in the gallery?

　　Neville:I have to say it is really difficult even in England. Because so much of the attention is directed to what happens in galleries, particularly the critical art press. I think if you are not inside of the main stream of gallery, you are easily dismissed. I think that’s the one thing that disappoints me. There is a really rich opportunity to make work which is outside of normal gallery scene but which is still relevant, high quality and engaging. Critical debate is important for an artist, to have that kind of critical forum where work can be discuss, debate, criticize and develop.

　　Yujie:Public art quite commonly is a part of urban regeneration program. It’s a commission from government but in the meantime it’s also a way to express artist personal and critical view. How do you balance these two things? Is there any system could support art autonomy? For example what’s the role of artist in resident of the Olympic park project?

　　Neville: I guess an artist in residence is a very curious position. The idea is to respond to what is happening on the park and to make that visible to wider audience, which is in itself worthwhile. So I am commissioned by ODA (Olympic Delivery Authority). They give me the access to the park. But it is really important that the funding does not come from ODA. It comes from Arts Council England. That means I am funded independently and I am not totally answer to them. What I try to say through my work remains independent, self-directed and my work is not subject to any censorship by the commissioners – the Olympic Delivery Authority.

　　It’s very hard sometimes with the Olympics project because there is so much money and politics at stake. It is highly controlled and all media is carefully handled, but as an artist it is important to maintain a certain distance and objectivity. This is been a very hard project in that respect. I constantly have to say to them “yes, I am artist resident for you, you commissioned me but I am not part of your public relations team. You need to understand as artist residence in the park, I have to be allowed the freedom to respond to what I see, to be objective, even critical of what I see and what’s going on. If I want to say something really negative about the Olympics, I am going to do that. You have to allow me the freedom to do that.” It is a really hard role and position to protect. But I think if I didn’t do that then I would compromise all my integrity as an artist. It’s a really fine line to tread.

　　Yujie: Could you tell me some story of the difficult experience in the Olympic park project?

　　Neville: In every bit of work I have done there have been really difficult challenges.

　　The whole system in the park is hugely bureaucratic. Every single venue in the park is managed by a different construction company, each with very different induction policies and different regulations. So every time I want to go from here to there, I have to do another safety induction, to meet a new team of people, to fill in a lot of paperwork. Just practically to organize access to go to different locations was a challenge. So even to sit on the stadium seats, I had to find the right people to talk to in order to get permission. Some times I have to go to the senior project managers at the ODA for access, and then I have to do inductions, to write 15 page risk assessment. It’s a massive process.

　　For example, one of my works is called “Every Seat in the Stadium”. To be in the stadium when it is completely empty and silent is a surreal and powerful experience, particularly imagining the intensity of emotion that it likely to be experienced in that arena in 2012.As one person in that vast space I was wondering how I could somehow measure the scale of it – sitting on all the seat seemed to be one solution. So I spent 69 hours attempting to sit in all 69000 seats then fitted in the Olympic Stadium. Whilst I only managed to sit in about 40000, the work was really an attempt to make sense of the scale of the building through one simple action. In order to do this work, I have to persuade the people in the park to let me do. You won’t believe how complicated to do it. It took me months to organize. Someone said to me why don’t you just sit on 200, and then you can do the mathematic and calculate them. I said no, I try to do it as it is an important experience.

　　My another work is called “Unearthed”. When I studied in the Royal College of Art for my MA, I decided to abandon my studio and start to work in different locations outside the studio’s. One of the places I was working was a disused paint factory which is exactly where Olympic pool now. In the curious way coming back as an artist in residence is like returning to the beginning for me. Also there was a cavernous former Yardley Perfume factory on Carpenters Road which had been converted into the largest artist’s studio complex in Europe for about 20 years. More than 500 artists worked there. But the interesting thing is that during my first few days as artist in Residence on the Olympic Park, the site was constantly described to me as a ‘derelict wasteland’, or ‘Brownfield site’. Language, which suggested nothing positive, nothing creative, and nothing desirable could possibly have flourished here. I thought it was really important to do a project to recognize that although Olympics has transformed the area; actually the whole area had a life and history before the Olympic’s arrived. Part of their history and life has been destroyed by the creation of the Olympic Park. So I did an exhibition by contacting as many artists who used to work in those studio’s as possible to come and show their works. In the sense was about capturing the history which otherwise has been completely lost. Again it was a really difficult project. I had to discuss with the ODA why I wanted to do a project which might be seen as being critical of the Olympics by remembering the past. For me it’s not about saying that Olympics is a terrible thing. But it’s important to remember that before the Olympics the place had a history and had community and had life. It might be very different what it’s going to be in future but you don’t need to destroy history because you are building something new.

　　Yujie: You just mentioned two of your works. There is another one which is quite similar with “The Bathers at Asnieres by Seurat” in 1800s. Could you talk about this work?

　　Neville: Yes, It’s a photograph evoking the spirit of the painting. The characters inhabiting the image are taken from the teams of specialist landscape gardeners, security staff, engineers and designers working on the Olympic Park and reflect the range of tasks, diversity and skills of the people who currently occupy the site.

　　There is an obvious and surprising physical connection between the two landscapes, but the concept for the work explores the more striking similarities between the social and political context of the two. When Seurat painted the Bathers at Asnieres in 1883-1884 it was seen as a radical image, based as it was on working class people in an urban park, in an industrial landscape. Seurat was one of the first French artists to celebrate the ordinary working man in the places they inhabited rather than the gentry in the urban sitting.

　　The Olympic Park, built in a post-industrial urban landscape, will be the first new public park to be created in the UK for perhaps 150 years. The first public park in working class city environments were built in the 1850’s in the UK [Salford, Birkenhead and Derby) just 30 years before Seurat painted the Bathers at Asnieres.

　　Taking the photograph on an extremely busy building site required careful choreography to get everyone at the location and in their right positions for that split-second of a camera click. It is a frozen moment.

　　The photograph, its associated website and newspaper feature is a way of revealing the stories of some of the many people that have built and maintain the Olympic park. www.greatlength2012.org.uk

　　Yujie: Have you ever summarize the way of your working as a public artist?

　　Neville: If we go back to the beginning when I was being interviewed to be Artist in Residence by the ODA they asked me what I would do if I got the position. There were several artists being interviewed for it. I took the decision when I was interviewed to say I had no proposal; I wasn’t going to give them a proposal if they took me as artist in residence until I had spent two months getting to know the site and the site staff. it would be impossible for me to have any ideas for my work before spending time getting to know the place. If I did have an idea before, it would make no sense of site as you are not responding what you found. I was quite clear in my mind, they need to give to my own space and time makes it possible for me to learn a bit of the park and make contact with people. In some ways it was a risk but it seemed to be the most honest approach. The fact they commissioned me give me the confidence to develop the project in my own way.

　　With all the projects I have done, if you work in a public space with lots of people, I feel it is really important to build up relationships. If you want them to be part of your work, they need to feel ok about who I am as a person and as an artist. Then not being exploited or manipulated in any way. You need to build up the trust. So it’s important and even with the bus drivers I spent ages in the canteen chatting with them, getting to know who they are, what their work involves.

　　That experience of getting to know people often gives you a very different perspective or insight. Like the project in Liverpool, I lived in the tower block for 5 years. I realized the stronger your relationship with the other residents was, the greater the trust, the more creative risks you could take. The bond with the community meant they could take that creative journey with you. That’s absolutely critical to the work.

　　And also I like to make the work which everybody can have. Such as the work Cantata I made in Bristol. We produced a book with a DVD. It means everyone involved in it can have a book and can take and keep the art work for themselves. There is something I really don’t like about the culture of artist as superstar, of art and the ridiculous financial excesses of many commercial galleries. I am interested in making work which anybody can have a copy of, which is freely available and accessible. Art to me is about ideas and a sharing of experience with as broad an audience as possible.