Suffolk artist's Olympic vision

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Kevin Burch reports on Robert Pacitti's 500,000 commission

A Suffolk artist has been awarded £500,000 to produce work in the region ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Robert Pacitti will host a series of large outdoor events and create a feature film as part of the project titled On Landguard Point.

The artist is intrigued by the contrast of Landguard Fort and the Olympics:

"Historically it was about keeping people out. [For the Olympics] we're absolutely throwing our doors open and welcoming people into our home."

The funding has been granted to the Pacitti Company by the Arts Council England and London 2012, under their Artists Taking the Lead project as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Eight other regions in the UK will also receive funding for projects.

Robert's work at the Felixstowe fort and around the region will enlist the help of composer Michael Nyman and choreographer Wayne McGregor.

Robert Pacitti's work centres around the coast and the sense of home

Nyman wrote the soundtrack to Peter Greenaway's film Drowning By Numbers which was shot in Southwold.

The local community will also be heavily involved in the new project.

"The Olympics is a fantastic, fantastic mechanism to celebrate our nations in large, important ways and it also has to be about all of us, everyday people," said Robert.

"I'm trying to make something that has that ambition of scale but is also completely domestic and genuinely for the people of this region."

Food for thought

Highlights of the project include an entire street being painted black and used as a stage and marketplace, 205 black flags (eventually replaced by those of participating countries in the Olympics) flown around the coast and four huge feasts.

"We're planning a series of giant feasts, each for 1000 people, with food cooked from the 205 participating Olympic countries.

Landguard Fort's proximity to Felixstowe docks intrigued the artist

"They'll be where Suffolk borders the other counties - so a long table for 1000 people crossing the border from Suffolk to Norfolk, one into Cambridgeshire, one into Essex and one disappearing into the sea."

The sea provided the inspiration for Robert's work and will be a key theme throughout the project.

"The emphasis of the project is the coast.

"The whole project is about notions of home, what do we think of as home, what do we call home, why do we call it home, importantly in advance of the Olympics what does it mean to have other people in our home and for me the connective tissue for us as an island is the water.

"It's what joins us to the rest of the world and is also what has disconnected us from the rest of the world at different points in our history."

"Landguard Fort is incredible and importantly it also sits next to Felixstowe Port, which is the UK's largest trade gateway.

Flags from participating Olympic nations will be flown on the East coast

"So you have this history of something that was to keep things and people out next to this huge doorway to bring stuff in. As an artist that fascinates me."

On Landguard Point will also feature a touring exhibition of ephemera in disused shops across the East of England.

Pacitti Company says a key part of the project will be to provide a training ground for disengaged young people, with local participants shadowing professionals in all areas of production.

Matthew Linley, chairman of the judging panel, said: "Robert is an extraordinary artist. He creates beautiful, beautiful work.

"So one of the things behind the decision is the merit of the artist. Personally I think he's absolutely the right artist to develop a project of this scale.

"But secondly it's because of the scope of the vision. I think it's one of these projects that lots of people in the region will either be touched by or absolutely want to get involved in."