What Is It That Sets Us Apart
Peter Liversidge

Peter Liversidge made a series of new works for We The People Are The Work, that brought together the ideas and voices of many different individuals and groups from Plymouth. What Is It That Sets Us Apart distilled texts from workshops carried out with Plymouth residents into a moving poetic work for the 18 flag poles on The Hoe, Plymouth’s famous seafront public space that commands views across Plymouth Sound to Drake’s island and Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall.

The artist’s project was a celebration of communities, of cooperation, and of the power of togetherness. It offered a means by which people and ideas came together through language, and a means by which that language could touch a truly democratic audience. Resolutely inclusive, the project was driven by a desire to make a multiplicity of local voices heard, setting up situations through the interlinked projects in which important questions about what it means to belong were discussed, recorded and aired by Plymouth’s own residents through bold public forms.

Over the seven-week duration of We The People Are The Work What Is It That Sets Us Apart was experienced by 133,000 members of the public.

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Sign Paintings for Plymouth and What Is It That Sets Us Apart were commissioned as part of We The People Are The Work, a major visual arts project curated by Simon Morrissey, Director of Foreground and presented by PVAPG (Plymouth Visual Art Programming Group), a partnership between The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art, KARST, Peninsula Arts at Plymouth University, Plymouth Arts Centre and The Box, Plymouth.

The exhibition was part of Horizon, a collaborative two-year programme of visual contemporary arts, funded through Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence fund and led by Plymouth Culture.