Faithful Art at St Bernadette’s School
11 January 2011
Our secondary school serving the south and east of Bristol has a newly installed piece of striking art. Michael Pinsky’s ‘Intersection’ is a giant, illuminated, grid-like compilation of students’ drawings of crosses which brightly pulsates within the heart of St Bernadette's Secondary School.
The hi-tech light-work has been commissioned by Bristol City Council for Catholic secondary schools as part of their BSF programme (Building Schools for the Future).
Described as “fabulous” and “dramatic”, Pinsky’s ‘Intersection’ is composed of hundreds of the pupils’ hand-drawn crosses painstakingly and skilfully computer-manipulated by Pinsky to form a giant illuminated grid-structure, or contoured map, which continuously pulsates at the far end of the main entrance corridor, in the heart of the school.
The work takes as its starting point the shared time that pupils spend together at school – a key meeting point in their lives. Pinsky describes this period as a “crossroads”, the ‘cross’ being further referenced by the faith school setting.
As with many of Pinsky’s works he has sought out the most conventional iconography and manipulated it to merge the different positions of interest. Diligently avoiding the self-expression normally associated with artistic endeavour he nevertheless set himself, in common with his ‘Horror Vacui’ assemblage of architectural tiles at Torres Vedras in Portugal, a personally, anxiety-driven puzzle - to include all the pupils’ contributions.
Encased in polished stainless steel the grid, or map, of white crosses has been transposed onto sheets of glass and illuminated from behind. Like a kinetic painting, first the crosses are highlighted, then the spaces in between the ‘colour’ of infinity.
‘Intersection’ each and every child at the 750 pupil-school was given a simple brief to respond immediately to the request to imagine and design a cross for a ‘Post It’ note-sized square.
In today’s (11 January) podcast, which is available in the multimedia panel on the right, we speak with students Ashley and Zoë as well as Head Basia McLoughlin and Deputy Kevin Magner.
Our secondary school serving the south and east of Bristol has a newly installed piece of striking art. Michael Pinsky’s ‘Intersection’ is a giant, illuminated, grid-like compilation of students’ drawings of crosses which brightly pulsates within the heart of St Bernadette's Secondary School.
The hi-tech light-work has been commissioned by Bristol City Council for Catholic secondary schools as part of their BSF programme (Building Schools for the Future).
Described as “fabulous” and “dramatic”, Pinsky’s ‘Intersection’ is composed of hundreds of the pupils’ hand-drawn crosses painstakingly and skilfully computer-manipulated by Pinsky to form a giant illuminated grid-structure, or contoured map, which continuously pulsates at the far end of the main entrance corridor, in the heart of the school.
The work takes as its starting point the shared time that pupils spend together at school – a key meeting point in their lives. Pinsky describes this period as a “crossroads”, the ‘cross’ being further referenced by the faith school setting.
As with many of Pinsky’s works he has sought out the most conventional iconography and manipulated it to merge the different positions of interest. Diligently avoiding the self-expression normally associated with artistic endeavour he nevertheless set himself, in common with his ‘Horror Vacui’ assemblage of architectural tiles at Torres Vedras in Portugal, a personally, anxiety-driven puzzle - to include all the pupils’ contributions.
Encased in polished stainless steel the grid, or map, of white crosses has been transposed onto sheets of glass and illuminated from behind. Like a kinetic painting, first the crosses are highlighted, then the spaces in between the ‘colour’ of infinity.
‘Intersection’ each and every child at the 750 pupil-school was given a simple brief to respond immediately to the request to imagine and design a cross for a ‘Post It’ note-sized square.
In today’s (11 January) podcast, which is available in the multimedia panel on the right, we speak with students Ashley and Zoë as well as Head Basia McLoughlin and Deputy Kevin Magner.
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