The People’s Theatre – A good candidate for an Arts & Heritage centre by Alan Rutherford
2021, Glasgow, Scotland
Three Artists Alan Rutherford (Scotland), Xiaoyu Xiong (China), Yuanjie Li (China) came together through the British Council's 'Connections Through Culture'. We have been working with Ding Feng, who is the Secretary and Curator of Ruan Yisan Heritage Foundation as part of it's Arts and Heritage project. We have been looking at the ancient historical seaside town of Chongwu in Fujian province.
My ideas for displaying art work at The People's Theatre.
The theatre is located in the centre of the town and is a prominent focal point. Installing work here would have the potential to transform the exterior and show local people the potential of using the Theatre as an Arts and Heritage venue. There is a lot of potential for the town to tell its story by using objects, photos, stories and art. For example there is an outstanding collection of model Chinese Junk boats in the town and this could form a small part of the display. Artists could show work that is related to the themes and history of the town, offering interpretations and new ways of viewing heritage and the past.
The Art work, thinking and rationale is based around Chongwu's location next to the sea. Xiaoyu made a site visit to Chongwu and it's local environs and recorded the information gained through these field trips, which can be viewed on the Art Heritage website that we created.
Discussions could take place about options such as the other artists in the project also designing art work to be displayed on the columns. The scope of the work could be extended using QR codes to link to the website where stories, information, histories and heritage background information could be collected and provided for audience engagement and educational purposes.
Visualisation below of the columns wrapped with the banners were made in the free and open source modelling program Blender and show the possibility of how the printed UV outdoor banners may look when installed.
Printing Costs
The printing could be sourced from Tongjie Image (Kunshan) Co., Ltd, a supplier based in Shanghai.
They can produce a high quality UV ink banner with over 3 years life outdoor. As per the estimation size specification produced above of 1.8m x 4.4m, the cost for 4 pieces, the price comes：75.00 usd/pc
75 USD x 4 = 300 USD and shipping to Quanzhou would cost 25 USD
Total cost to produce 4 banners including deliver: 325 USD
Full details of printing process available on Tongjie Image (Kunshan) website
About UV Printing
'UV Printing was almost unheard of until recently. Many printers are now offering UV printing due to its many advantages over traditional (aka: convention) printing. The printing process is almost exactly the same for both conventional and UV printing; the difference comes in the inks and the drying process associated with those inks.
Conventional offset printing uses solvent inks – which are not the greenest option – because they evaporate into the air, releasing VOC's. They often require additional spray powders to aid in drying. Because they are absorbed into the paper, colors can become diluted and less bright. Depending on the paper's character and weight, drying can add days to each job. Conventional inks must be absorbed by the substrate they are printed on therefore, you can not use them on materials like plastic, foil, or acrylics.
UV inks dry through a photomechanical process. The inks are exposed to ultraviolet lights as they are printed, immediately turning from a liquid to a solid with very little evaporation of solvents and almost no absorption of the ink into the paper stock. So it is possible to print on virtually whatever you want when using UV inks! Since they dry immediately and release no VOC's into the environment, UV printing is considered a green technology, safe for the environment and leaving an almost zero carbon footprint.'