Monday, February 1, 2010


About Art - Temenos Structure

It's been perhaps farily described as looking like a Femidom, a pair of tights, and even a tennis net. It's fair to say local people have been fairly flummoxed as to what ..exactly..Temenos..is?

It's one of five enormous pieces of public art costing £15 million that are to be built in Teesside and County Durham in the UK- they'll be called Tees Valley Giants. The first one, Temenos, will be built on the North East corner of Middlehaven Dock.

Temenos is a sculpture by international artist Anish Kapur. He says that while some people may feel the money could be better spent on hospital beds, artwork also has an important role to play when it comes to healing both people and society. "Art has other ways of infiltrating our consciousness and bringing things socially that are just as important as hospital beds".

The name comes from the Greek and means "a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land dedicated to a god". So there you go. Joe Doherty is Chief Executive of Tees Valley Regeneration. He says “The first of the Tees Valley Giants revealed today is Temenos - which will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Transporter Bridge as a landmark for future generations.”

The multi-million pound cost, while the country stalls in the midst of a credit crunch, has caused more than a few raised eyebrows. It has been commissioned as part of the Tees Valley Giants initiative. Sculptures will also be installed at Stockton, Hartlepool, Darlington and Redcar and Cleveland, adding up to the biggest public art project anywhere in the world. The Middlehaven Dock structure was unveiled on July 22, 2008. Find out more about this project at: http://www.visitmiddlesbrough.com/site/whats-new/news/2008/7/22/world-class-sculpture-unveiled-a100

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