Workshop led by Stefan Shankland - Review

Held on Place de la Liberté, Brest’s main square, this workshop was led by visual artist Stefan Shankland supported by Etienne Delprat and Yassine El Kherfih from architecture collective YA+K. A dozen students from UBO (Brest University - Master in Culture Management), Institut de GéoArchitecture, EESAB (Brest Fine arts school) and University of Winchester, took part in a workshop from 17th to 19th March.

Workshop participants chose to focus on a specific material : safety barriers. This object symbolises the public space and how it is organised, and conveys both social and political values. The workshop aimed to create a giant visual art structure including a live art element. This concept questions our relation to the Place de la Liberté and to the public space in general.

The result is a huge ephemeral art piece : a 5m high wave made of more than 200 barriers and erected in the middle of the Place de la Liberté.
The structure was set up on the Wednesday evening for its ’activation’ on Thursday morning, and taken down straight after. When the workshop title ’fast intervention force’ takes on its full meaning...