In 2010 the artists collective New British Art was awarded funded through Stiwdio Safle, a programme run by Safle (the former national organisation for public art in Wales) on behalf of the Arts Council of Wales. Following the closure of Safle, Addo was engaged by the Arts Council of Wales to manage the Blue Bell Hangar Project on their behalf. The project took the form of an experimental sculpture resulting from a collaboration between seven artist members of New British Art, namely Rachel Bennett, Dallas Collins, Mark Halliday, John Minton, Luke Mintowt-Czyz, Caroline Taylor, Becky Whitmore and Gareth Williams
2010 – 2012
Blue Bell Hangar at the St Athan former military airbase in the Vale of Glamorgan and New British Art’s base at Cilyrynys, a former dairy farm in Carmarthenshire.
Arts Council of Wales
Arts Council of Wales, the Welsh Government, the Ministry of Defence, Airborne Systems and CFAR.
New British Art Group (Rachel Bennett, Dallas Collins, Mark Halliday, Luke Mintowt-Czyz, Caroline Taylor, Becky Whitmore and Gareth Williams)
The Blue Bell Hangar Project book can be downloaded here:
Blue Bell Hangar Project BookThe Blue Bell Hangar film can be viewed on New British Art’s website :
Image: Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art installed in the Blue Bell Hangar, St Athan former military airbase, Vale of Glamorgan, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Image of the 1906 flight of Alexander Graham Bell's experimental kite, The Cygnet © New British Art
Image: Attempt to fly Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art at their base in Carmarthenshire, 2012 © New British Art
Image: Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art installed in the Blue Bell Hangar, St Athan former military airbase, Vale of Glamorgan, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art installed in the Blue Bell Hangar, St Athan former military airbase, Vale of Glamorgan, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art installed in the Blue Bell Hangar, St Athan former military airbase, Vale of Glamorgan, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art installed in the Blue Bell Hangar, St Athan former military airbase, Vale of Glamorgan, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art installed in the Blue Bell Hangar, St Athan former military airbase, Vale of Glamorgan, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Constructing a replica of Alexander Graham Bell's experimental kite, The Cygnet, for Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Constructing a replica of Alexander Graham Bell's experimental kite, The Cygnet, for Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art, 2011 © New British Art
Image: Attempt to fly Blue Bell Hangar, an experimental sculpture by New British Art at their base in Carmarthenshire, 2012 © New British Art
New British Art Group (NBAG) is made up of early career and more established fine art practitioners working across the range of disciplines and has grown from an informal meeting of artists over a number of years in Cardiff. The group was formalised as an artist-led organisation in 2009 with the aim of collaborating on projects that would not necessarily be possible for an individual artist to undertake. Blue Bell Hangar is one such project, made possible by funding from Stiwdio Safle, a programme run by Safle (the former national organisation for public art in Wales) on behalf of the Arts Council of Wales.
Addo provided project management and curatorial support to New British Art on behalf of the Arts Council of Wales, including:
For the Blue Bell Hangar Project, the group created a sculpture and a series of outcomes, reflections and events around a celebrated experimental kite called The Cygnet, made by Alexander Graham Bell at the turn of the 20th Century. Bell’s kite was constructed as a vehicle for experimentation into flight and the principles of lift. Made up of a thinly cut, spruce dowel tetrahedral skeleton, carefully engineered steel connectors and a silk cloth covering, the kite flew successfully in 1906. This was later developed further into the wing of an aircraft capable of providing enough lift to raise two adult men into the air. The kite was made and flown at a moment in history when mechanical and scientific experimentation was producing a new world aesthetic: functional form was infiltrating the visual arts and modernism was seeded. Bell’s Cygnet resembles a modernist sculpture.