Design Credit: Haddad|Drugan
Request for Artist Qualifications
Emerald Loop Shelter at Town Common Greenville, NC
Applications Due: April 1, 2023
“EMERALD LOOP” PROJECT
The Emerald Loop Shelter at Town Common is one component of the larger Emerald Loop Vision Plan. Conceptually, the Emerald Loop is a necklace connecting Greenville’s existing and envisioned cultural gems, while simultaneously bringing together the city’s neighborhoods and community. More literally, the “Loop” is a multimodal circuit encouraging pedestrian traffic within the inner loop and vehicular traffic on the outer loop.
TOWN COMMON SHELTER PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Emerald Loop Shelter at Town Common is the first of three shelters planned along the Emerald Loop as a stop for the Emerald Express, as well as an art experience and sitting area for passers by. Town Common used to be the location of the thriving Shore Drive neighborhood, where many African American community members lived. It was razed to the ground in the early 1970’s to make way for “urban renewal,” causing many community members to be relocated. The City of Greenville turned the area into a large city park called Town Common. For decades the history of the land was not widely known. This changed in 2021, with construction of the Sycamore Hill Gateway Plaza in Town Common, commemorating where the Sycamore Hill Missionary Baptist Church stood before it was burned in an act of arson.
The Emerald Loop Shelter at Town Common will be the second public art element to commemorate this previous neighborhood. Like the Sycamore Hill Gateway Plaza, the new shelter will be a stop on the African American Cultural Trail. The shelter will be located on Town Common near the intersection of 1st Street and Cotanche Street. Artists Haddad|Drugan have designed its structure.
ART OPPORTUNITY
Pitt County Arts Council seeks an artist or artist team to design a graphic for the shelter’s back wall, which is composed of fifteen vertical “fins” that are each 12”-wide and almost 6’-tall. The fins are two-sided and will have durable printed imagery applied to both sides. The imagery will appear continuous across the expanse of the fins. One side will have a graphic depicting a historic photograph of the Shore Drive neighborhood, highlighting the front porches of homes that once stood at this location. The opposite side of the fins is the site of the current art opportunity. The fins are envisioned to rotate, like vertical blinds, by a hand-operated internal mechanical apparatus. Budget pending, they may also be stationary, in which case the side of the current art opportunity will be visible to those moving eastward past the shelter.
The fins will be illuminated at night by color-changing LED lights. This presents an opportunity to create artwork that changes in appearance with different light colors. Haddad|Drugan have designed several murals working with this effect (http://haddad-drugan.com/#/bayview-rise/) and will be available to assist semi-finalist artists interested in learning more about this technique. Pitt County Arts Council is seeking qualifications from visual artists interested in creating imagery for one side of the shelter’s fins. The selected artist or artist team will collaborate and coordinated with Haddad|Drugan, along with Pitt County Arts Council staff and SmART City Stakeholders. It is desired that the resulting artwork will conceptually connect the past, present and future of Greenville’s community and Town Common itself and inspire future hopes and dreams of what Town Common can be for our community to come together and be inclusive and harmonious.
The goals of the project are to:- Infuse creativity and artistry into a visible location in the former Shore Drive neighborhood.
- Inspire thought and reflection.
- Encourage community members to interact.
ELIGIBILITY
To be eligible, artists must demonstrate a connection to eastern North Carolina and be 18 years of age or older. Pitt County Black artists are particularly encouraged to apply.
TIMELINE FOR PROJECT
- April 1, 2023: Applications due by 11:59pm via the online application.
- April 7, 2023: Selection Committee reviews applications and recommends semi-finalists.
- May 12, 2023: Artwork proposals submitted by finalists. Interviews with semi-finalists to be scheduled after semi-finalists have been identified.
- May 30, 2023: Finalist artist/proposal is selected.
- Fall 2023: Installation of artwork.
Applications due April 1, 2023
QUESTIONS
Please submit all questions via email to holly@pittcountyarts.org no later than March 29, 2023. Holly Garriott can also be reached at 252-551-6947.
More information about the Emerald Loop Vision Plan can be found here: https://www.pittcountyarts.org/community/arts-district
More information about the proposed Emerald Loop Shelter design can be found on the following page, and here: Shelter design concept, showing historic photo on one side of fins: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybrav2gif38zfwi/Emerald Loop Shelter Design Development.pdf?dl=0
