Art v Jobs

New from Northamptonshire County Council – which just last year cut 900 jobs as part of a £69,000,000 package of budget savings comes “STITCH – A new art installation”.

As part of the countywide GLOBAL FOOTPRINT project, artist Jo Fairfax and the FLOW team will deliver a new laser art installation – STITCH – in Northamptonshire. A new art installation that binds together the historic villages of Earls Barton and Wollaston with a 3 miles long laser beam.

This path of light skims across the beautiful Nene valley pinpointing two prestigious boot and shoe-making factories, Barker Shoes and Griggs, home of Dr Martens.

Glorious – and surely worth every single penny.

We’ve mentioned before that art projects and installations could be considered as a complete waste of money. For example, Cape Town insists on funding the annual Infecting the City arts festival, during which:

City “treasures”, including King Edward’s statue on the Grand Parade, were covered in clingwrap and trees on the station forecourt were draped in toilet paper.

despite having a housing backlog of around 500,000 people.

One can only wonder what those individuals made redundant by Northamptonshire County Council think of this:

ambitious countywide programme of contemporary ‘living heritage’ events and exhibitions, using visual and digital arts to showcase and celebrate Northamptonshire’s defining cultural heritage and identity.

What a load of cobblers.