This cast iron rhomboid forms part of a public art feature in Sandford Park. The Friendship Circle was one of the first Council funded art installations in Cheltenham, installed in 1993, by South African born artist Neville Gabie to represent the twinning of the town with other towns around the world like Anncey, France and Cheltenham, America. The work contains a flat plan, made of iron laid in the concrete, of one of the rhomboids and then has three rhomboids in different stages of completion. The four main paths in the park cross through the Friendship Circle. Its great to be able to get up close and touch or climb on this really interesting piece of art.
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4 comments:
This is an interesting piece of art work. Shame that the same cannot be said for the rest of the garden. This part of Sandford Park is meant to be representative of all the twinning links of Cheltenham. There are parts of the park allocated to other places such as Sochi (Russia) and Kisumu (Kenya)...but nothing actually physical to represent these communities (e.g. no signage, foliage, etc). I actually am a member of the Cheltenham based educational charity The Rendezvous Society. We help to promote cultural understanding and environmental education through twinning. In 2000, we campaigned to redesign the twinning garden in Sandford Park. Artists and landscape designers from Sochi and other countries visited Cheltenham to design their vision for the garden. We even got as far as having a feasibility study carried by the Cheltenham Parks Deptartment. Unfortuantely, when it came to funding...it fell on deaf ears!
Glad you know that this sculpture has something to do with the twin towns...as not many other people know this. Hey...I bet they don't even know all the names of Cheltenham's twin towns!!! ;-)
This is really interesting Glenn. I had know idea this had happened, but i'm not surprised by the lack of funding. I didn't know other areas of the park were linked to Cheltenhams twins. Thanks for this informative comment.
What a cool work of art. I'd love to see it up close!
It's strange but nice. How big is it?
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