Media Centre

Audio Visual Artist Mat Beckett

Produced by National Express, implemented and managed by EC-Arts

"If aspiring international cities must possess a strong sense of local place, they should reflect their often diverse cultures and communities through their history, their architecture and the shared experience of the people whilst also encouraging further interconnections with the world around them.

"Artistic production and the creation of public art should be the perfect vehicle of a truly international city as it seeks to celebrate local experience whilst pointing to the future and challenging its preconceptions.

"This short film explores the collaborative processes between private, public, community and artistic interests in developing a new coach station for Birmingham that attempts to incorporate public art as an integral part of its function and its statement as a building that connects the local with the national and the international."

Matthew Beckett
Audio Visual Artist

Arts Awards young people Mohammed Atif, Mohammed Shoaib, Haroon Adil, and Sikander Najib worked with Audio Visual Artist Mat Beckett to gain a Silver Arts Award. (a national accredited qualification www.artsaward.org.uk). Their challenge was to participate within the creation and production of a short film documenting Digbeth Public Art process with the following team mentoring the young people:

• Commissioned Audio Visual Artist Mat Beckett
• Arts Awards Advisor Claire Farrell EC-Arts
• film Graduates Aidan Dowan, Edward Williams and Phil Rees.

The unique and energising developments in Digbeth created an opportunity to produce the first public art footage on this area to be added to the city archives. The film will sit alongside the Eastside documentary created by Maverick TV in 2007 as an invaluable record of the city's regeneration. The coach station has 1.5million arrivals and departures per year who will potentially watch the documentary in the new coach station waiting room as a permanent digital media installation, which will supplement their awareness of the public art.

The film of the DPAP process is being produced by artist Mat Beckett and with the group of young people participating within the process sponsored by National Express to obtain their Silver Arts Awards. The young have learnt and developed new skills by recording innovatively and artistically using digital equipment provided by DPAP. The film will include a timelapse of the Coach Station and ‘Boundary’ fence, artist interviews, workshops, events and the fabrication and installation process. Please see gallery for visual images of the project.