Structures for an Ordinary Utopia
Simon and Tom Bloor

Creating publicly sited artworks is central to Simon & Tom Bloor’s practice. Making sculptures that move beyond existing as art objects to offer social functions they seek to find ways to take existing forms found in the built landscape and repurpose them as artworks, adjusting their context or appearance to offer new uses.

For Instructions for an Ordinary Utopia Simon & Tom Bloor made two new temporary public sculptures that combine seating, noticeboards, enclosures and play structures to create new social spaces in underused parts of the Frome. Structure for an Ordinary Utopia (public seating) was located in a hidden paved courtyard behind Ellenbray Toys and Stationery, which is housed in the town’s 1960’s Brutalist former Library building – a site previously used by Michael Dean for his work Wednesday in Intervention/Decoration in 2008. A sculptural take on civic furniture, the work was an opportunity to sit in quiet contemplation or to hang out with friends.

In Welshmill Woods on the outskirts of the town centre the artists installed Structure for an Ordinary Utopia (play maze), a work that repurposed a standard chain link fencing system designed to keep people out of private areas. Arranged in an open grid and sprayed with bright neon colour the fencing became an invitation to play rather than a barrier to restrict. The two structures were aesthetically linked by the Bloor’s immersive clouds of colour that liberate spray paint from the realm of graffiti and urban decay and use it to create striking abstract decoration.