Marcela Livingston is a designer-maker, public artist, and sculptor. She has 30 years of experience creating public art with local consultation and teaching design as the core value for community engagement. Originally from Argentina, Marcela has lived in Bradford since 1988 and works from premises in Sunbridge Road.
Marcela arrived in London from Buenos Aires in 1980. She attended courses at the Sir John Cass School of Art, the London College of Printing, and the St. Martin School of Art; subjects included life drawing, photography, printing techniques, graphic design and illustration. In 1996 she completed a Masters Degree (MA) at Manchester Metropolitan University in Art as Environment and in 2011 a Diploma in Level 3 Horticulture. More recently she also learned about machine knitting and video editing.
Marcela designed holographic foils for advertising before moving to Bradford in 1988 to launch her own business. Her work spans a wide range of projects and commissions for both commercial, private and public organizations. These have involved the design and construction of sculptural artworks, as well as other structures that combine pragmatic public use with artistic flair. Her street furniture includes cast-iron gates, public seating, fencing, security grills, rails and balustrades, signage, and much more.
Community Design Examples
‘Thornbirds., Riverside Sculpture Park railings and ‘see through’ posts, Gateshead, 2004.
Balustrade with four cast iron dragon design panels, 1998, for the New Science Block, Dragon School, Oxford.
Marcela has worked with a wide range of materials: metal, including malleable cast iron and steel, as well as stone, concrete, polycarbonate, resins and wood, including live willow. In recent years her designs have also incorporated fiber-optics and LED lighting.
‘Speke Spark’: a 5m tall mild steel structure with LED lights, Speke Retail Park, Liverpool, 2008
See also link to you the tube video of colour-changing lights: Speke Spark
Commercial clients have included Harvey Nichols, Peter Fiell and Musicworks in London, and the Speke Retail Park, Liverpool.
In the public sector, her work has included commissions for Bradford Council, as well as public authorities or publicly funded associations, including housing trusts and educational institutions, in London, Liverpool, Rotherham, Manchester, Barnsley, and Wakefield, Gateshead, Pendle, Oxford and Hull.
Central to Marcela’s design philosophy is that art with local involvement offers both personal satisfaction and community benefits. In her experience:
Sharing in the creation of quality art makes everyone proud, improves self-esteem, and contributes to a greater sense of belonging.
An example of this is her 2006 public artwork located off Manchester Road, Bradford. Commissioned by a regeneration partnership for the Living Streets project, Marcela worked with residents and children to design and make a metal latticework sculpture of an egg, inset with fiber-optic lights (see below).
Marcela said:
People said it wouldn’t last because in their experience nothing good has ever survived. But every time I go there, people say they love it in the evenings because it’s soothing, the lights change colour. There are seats around it. They have something other people haven’t got. Fifteen years on, the community policewoman told me she often heard locals say “meet you by the egg” and since people drop their aluminium cans through the holes, the Council treats it as a recycling collection point
Marcela’s main interest has always been in marrying materials she is interested in with unexpected manufacturing techniques. In her most recent venture, Marcela has taken to market a new product called Sapcots using a fabric she developed for outdoor use. Made in recyclable water-resistant polypropylene, the multi-coloured containers are designed to be filled with soil and molded to shape, typically to contain plants (examples below).
Of the future she says:
I am now on an R&D mission to find low-cost and recycled materials for functional art and to apply my skills into developing local talent for local projects in time for Bradford City of Culture 2025. My aim is to have an exhibition showcasing my new work, with the intention of meeting local people and organizations interested in getting involved. I also want to form links with the Bradford business community should the ideas prove viable to take to market.
Artist Contact: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcelalivingstonartist/