Public Art

Celebrating nature and creating places for communities

For the past 14 years, The Community Brain have been celebrating local stories, people and creativity, initially through hosting a wide range of community events in Surbiton, Kingston and Tolworth. Since then our work has expanded to incorporate the animation of public spaces, exploring local heritage through oral histories, and measures to tackle food poverty.

Find out more about some of our public art projects below

MINI MOMENTS

RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival 2024

In collaboration with 121.Collective

‘Mini Moments’ is The Community Brain’s 6th display at Hampton Court Garden Festival forming part of the Mini Moments programme.
Mini Moments is a year long celebration of the incredible tradition of design and innovation in our local area of Kingston, Surbiton and Chessington. This includes a particular focus on Cooper Cars, which revolutionised Formula One and rally driving in the 1950s and 1960s from its garage on Hollyfield Road, Surbiton.

Their rear engine revolution transformed F1, with driver Jack Brabham becoming the first to win the championship (1959, 1960) with an engine in the back of his vehicle.

And in 1961 the Mini Cooper was born after John Cooper spent two weeks hacking the design of Alex Issigonis’s Mark I Mini. Driven by Paddy Hopkirk, the car became an international sensation when it won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, and again in 1965 and 1967.

With the 1964 winning car, ‘33 EJB’, appearing in a distinctive Corgi Toys box, our Mini Moments display at Hampton Court celebrates these extraordinary victories.

THE TALE OF THE LAMPLIGHTER

Kingston’s Light Procession

In partnership with Kingston School of Art MArch U5

This project developed as part of a brief to reimagine Kingston’s town centre and public realm through the eyes of an architect and a storyteller, using dreams, myths and fairytales as a tool to engage the community and revitalise its spaces.

The research behind this project focused on discovering ways to reimagine the nighttime economy of Kingston Town Centre through myths and ecology. Our research uncovered the historic candle industry of Kingston, which in turn inspired ‘The Path of the Lamplighter’ - a story of a procession from the site of the old candle factory to the old candle shop on the market square.

Now, locals can follow this path themselves in ‘Kingston’s Light Procession’ and display their lanterns on a tower designed and built by the students of Unit 5. It was an exciting and rewarding event that encouraged all the students to become designers, builders and storytellers, and allowed the people of Kingston to reclaim their public space that is stolen by the night.

The structure which can be dissassembled and re-constructed in different sites has become a key element of Kingston’s annual Light Procession, emerging in different sites as a way to re-vitalise underused spaces in Kingston’s town centre.

WOKING STATION BENCHES

In partnership with South Western Railway & 121 Collective

Comissioned by South Western Railway to design and build a series of benches outside Woking Station to provide commuters with a place of rest adjacent to the stations primary bus stop. To showcase SWR’s commitment to a more sustainable future, the benches were made primarily using reclaimed and waste materials.

The freestanding gabion bases are filled with varies waste aggregates and stones gathered from various SWR depots, and the bespoke top are crafted using waste materials gathered from the Tolworth Main allotments producing a beautiful white terrazo. The benches include spaces for hardy plants that require little to no maintenance and the benches are designed to sit around the existing trees on-site.

TOLWORTH COURT FARM FIELDS NATURE RESERVE

In partnership with 121 Collective

The SHEDx project in Tolworth has helped to raise awareness of the borough’s largest nature reserve, Tolworth Court Farm Fields. Through surveys and conversations with local residents, the project team discovered that many people were unaware of the reserve’s existence, even though it is located just a short walk from many homes and Tolworth Broadway.

In response to this, the SHEDx team worked with the community to renovate one of the entrances to the reserve.

The new entrance features a variety of interventions that have been developed around the existing infrastructure, including; a new gate with signage that welcomes visitors, a series of totem posts representing various species of fauna that can be found in the reserve, a new map developed by graphic design students from Kingston University that highlights the different features of the reserve, a new stair that makes the entrance more accessible, and a bug hotel that is influenced by the form of Tolworth Tower.

TOLWORTH ROUNDABOUT

Artwork by WeAreSkyHigh

As part of SHEDx Growing Ideas, The Community Brain commissioned three beautiful murals by WeAreSkyHigh; two at Tolworth Roundabout and one at Tolworth Station. The murals are designed to celebrate Tolworth’s wildlife and promote Tolworth Court Farm Fields nature reserve and The Hogsmill River.

The new wayfinding signage is designed to encourage walking and cycling to explore the area, educate on local wildlife and improve signposting to places of interest.

Tolworth Court Farm Fields is just to the south of Tolworth Station and we are in the process of putting in place a variety of innovative and creative ways to guide people from the Broadway, across the A3 and onwards to this wonderful nature reserve which many locals discovered during lockdown.

Know Your Neighbourhood Birds on Tolworth Roundabout

Himali Patil, a Kingston University graduate from the Sustainable Design MA and part of The Community Brain team, has created a welcome addition to the Tolworth Roundabout posts, in the form of stunning enamel hand-printed birds, inspired from an Indian tribal artform called 'Gond art' which will lead from Tolworth Broadway towards Tolworth Court Farm Fields. The project highlights the rich biodiversity of the space by enhancing its local identity through its 29 characteristic birds.

The intention is to engage the community with its existing yet underused green spaces and encourage them to be ecologically literate about their own neighbourhoods. The project encourages the community to create sustainable living spaces not just for themselves but also the biodiversity that calls this space home.