Agenda: Newport Towards 2010  

 

With major redevelopment of the city of Newport at present, it is appropriate that we engage a Janus-like reflection upon the evolution of the city and the art world of Newport, its past shapes and future prospects, as the city engages the current phase of modernity's challenges and new opportunities.  

Whither a cultural agenda for the new City of Newport towards 2010?  
 

 

The above curatorial reflections upon the evolution of Newport as a city and the current context of civic change suggests the following  cultural agenda.

 
 

 A city in transformation

     
    • Newport's assumption of city status in 2002 provides the latest dramatic chapter in Newport's rise to the  Faustian challenge of modernity across the generations.
     

    ~ News of Newport's city status came in the aftermath of steel closures that marked a final decline of the traditional economy of coal and steel. Today, in 2007, Newport has all the appearance of a city on the move as it engages its "post-industrial" regeneration strategy towards the horizon of 2010.  

     

     

     

     

     

    ~ The burgeoning city of Newport has lost no time in forging ahead with a major redevelopment scheme, spearheaded by the new Newport City Footbridge which echoes the Newport Transporter Bridge a century before as a monumental assertion of faith in the future prospects of Newport. 

     

     

     

    ~  With large-scale redevelopment moving apace on the ground, the City of Newport is rebranding itself as a vibrant entrepreneurial city as the horizon of 2010 approaches when Newport will host the Ryder Cup and occupy a world stage. 

     


     


     


     

    Cultural reorientations

     

    • Hence we arrive at today's crossroads in the changing fortunes of the City of Newport, with the horizon of 2010 set for completion of the major city centre regeneration project. ~ Whither a cultural agenda for the new City of Newport?   
       

    ~ As the new entrepreneurial city of Newport follows its redevelopment plans to produce a new spatial order in the city centre and alongside the River Usk, we see that the planner's blueprint includes the  "Left Bank District" with a new campus on the west bank of the Usk for the University of Wales and  the re-location of the Newport School of Art, Media and Design. 

     

     

     



    ~ Moreover there has been recent press speculation upon a National Centre  for Contemporary Art in Wales, with Newport touted as a frontrunner and reference to the transformation of the Spanish industrial port of Bilbao's fortunes by its new Guggenheim Museum ( - see South Wales Argus, 22 May 2007,  "Art gallery could kick-start regeneration",  here ; and  "City could be home for modern art", here). From a planners point of view a Centre for Contemporary Art would be an obvious addition to the city's Usk-side regeneration (- think of the Baltimore and Gateshead redevelopment models). 

    ~ Will the new physical proximity of cultural institutions within the re-cast city space help to re-establish the spirit of shared creative endeavour and solidarity of place of previous generations? The new social and cultural geography of the city may enable a newly charged "space of place", a new constellation of cultural relationships, affinities and affiliations? It remains to be seen how far a re-location from Caerleon to the "downtown", west bank of the River Usk may restore a new sense of urbanity back into the culture of art education.

     

     

    Towards a new cultural geography of Newport

     

    • The current dramatic changes in the built environment of Newport represent today's response to modernity's latest phase of challenge and opportunity. ~ Will the new physical proximity of cultural institutions within the re-cast city space help to re-establish the spirit of shared creative endeavour and solidarity of place of previous generations?


     

     

       

     

     Towards a new cultural geography of Newport - see inset notes here. 

       

     
    ~ Is it too utopian a hope to look forward to a renewed relationship of the art world and the public sphere, as both the Newport Museum and Art Gallery and the Newport School of Art orientate themselves to new directions in the new city that is in the making? 

    ~ It is hoped that the Newport Museum and Art Gallery and the Newport School of Art can find means for new partnerships over the next few years. 

    ~ The Documenting the City project has provided a starting point for such dialogue. 

     

    John Wilson, Guest Curator |  May - June 2007

     

     

    Postscript