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West Way public art
campaign
Putting this place-making project on the map
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Background
Community organisation Fusion Arts has been acting as a curatorial partner for three upcoming pieces of public art in the newly redeveloped West Way Square in Botley, near Oxford. Working in close partnership with North Hinksey Parish Council and the Art Development Officer for the Vale of the White Horse District Council, they are supporting artists Alex Wenham, Clare Goodall and Eleanor Greenhalgh to produce vibrant, intriguing, playful and location-specific art for the square.
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The pieces will be interconnected by the inspiration they each draw from local wildlife, the community and the history of the area. The three artists will be working across the mediums of painted mural, mosaic and stonecarving, and have been engaging with local schools, groups and people to gather inspiration for their work. More information here.
Brief
"Engagement with and input from Botley's community is an essential part of this exciting collaborative initiative. We need to make more local people aware of the project and get them engaging with it via an upcoming community open day. Can you help?"
Process
As the Marketing Manager for Fusion Arts, it was my responsibility to create and deliver a campaign that would increase community awareness of the project and entice locals to be creatively involved in shaping their communal space.
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When I was brought on board, the project had been in development for a while, so my initial work was to get up to speed. I read relevant material including project proposals, artist statements and workshop writeups, and spoke with each artist to gain further insight into what they had been up to and what they had planned.
I ascertained that the artists had conducted a number of conversations and workshops with local groups and schools, but were looking to involve a wider pool of people via the family-friendly engagement day, which would run in West Way Square alongside a popular monthly market. I therefore determined that all comms around the project needed to be upbeat and welcoming, encouraging people to become an active part of the initiative, and should centre around promoting the open day, particularly to young families.
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Using this information, I wrote a blurb outlining the project and artistic processes so far as well as details of the public engagement day. I converted this into a short press release calling people to come along to the open day and circulated it amongst local media contacts. The story was covered by Oxford Mail and used on the North Hinksey Parish Council website. Using the blub, I also produced three news articles for Fusion Arts' newly redeveloped website, each including a call to get involved at the open day. One of the articles was a blog post adapted from a piece written by commissioned artist Nor Greenhalgh for the March 2022 edition of The Sprout, a local newspaper for Botley and North Hinksey residents.
To capitalise on Fusion Arts' relatively large local Instagram following (2,500 followers; 44% based in Oxfordshire) the articles and open day callouts were advertised via a combination of organic and paid for social posts that targeted Fusion Arts' followers and people aged 18-65+ living in the Botley and North Hinksey area with interests in visual arts and/or family-friendly activities. The open day callout was also circulated via North Hinksey Parish Council's Facebook page and dedicated project Instagram account (@BotleyGAP) to tap into their hyperlocal audience. Additionally, the opportunity was shared with relevant local partners and publicised on Oxfordshire event listing websites including OxOnArts and Daily Info. Physical posters encouraging people to get involved were displayed in and around West Way Square during the week preceding the open day.
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Top left: posters on display; top left: Instagram post advertising the day; bottom left: Instagram feed of publicity for the project; bottom right: posters on display
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Selection of the project takeover cards
To ensure consistency and recognisability, I designed all promotional materials, including the Instagram takeover and physical posters using the same graphic style, bright colour scheme and organic shape motifs. This style was designed to look engaging, friendly (particularly towards young children and families) and in-keeping with Fusion Arts' use of bright and fresh colours, whilst differentiating itself from other projects through the use of organic shapes and outlines intended to reflect the nature and wayfinding themes of the proposed public art.
I further leveraged Fusion Arts' relatively large online local reach by designing and producing an Instagram takeover series on the project. This consisted of a number of Instagram story cards featuring bite-sized chunks of information and images arranged in an attractive and user friendly manner. The cards introduced viewers to the project and outlined the commissioned artists' areas of interests & expertise, the background work and community engagement that had taken place so far, the artists' proposed pieces and their artistic process to date. The story was shared over the course of five days on Fusion Arts' Instagram stories, with an invite to the open day displayed after each daily story set. It was publicised beforehand using organic and paid for social posts on the @FusionArtsOx and @BotleyGAP Instagram accounts. This takeover presented an additional interactive, accessible and informal touchpoint through which people could quickly understand the basics of the project. View the full project here.
Results
Overall, 855 people were reached via social media ads on Instagram and Facebook, while an extra 1,673 people were reached organically. There were 73 event link clicks / engagements with the ads. An additional 2,500 people were reached via posts on Twitter with an engagement rate of 2.3%. The takeover series received a total of 412 views during the week that it ran, and continues to feature as a stories highlight, accruing further views.
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The open day itself attracted over 100 people who came by during the afternoon, had a chat with the artists, shared their thoughts and participated in a group painting and mosaics which will be used to inform the final artwork designs.
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Since then, the project has continued, holding subsequent community workshops and design development sessions. The artwork proposals are in the process of being approved by various authorities and are scheduled for production in 2023. Fusion Arts and North Hinksey Parish Council continue to convey project updates using the graphic design assets that I created.
