THE revamped Malls shopping centre will feature art created by Basingstoke youngsters.
Basingstoke borough council has recruited teams of nine and 10-year-olds from Fairfields Primary School to help professional artist Steve Geliot create a new seating area for Alencon Link entrance.
In a series of workshops held throughout the month, the youngsters pitched their ideas to Steve.
The concepts will be used by the Brighton-based artist to create and design the seating, ready for its installation in the autumn.
“The Year Five and Six pupils I have started to work with at Fairfields are incredibly bright and so I am very confident about how we will move forward on our creative journey together,” he said.
“In our first sessions they have been deluged with new ideas, images and ways of thinking about the world in three dimensions.
“Now that the getting-to-know-each-other phase is complete, we have to work hard together to make something beautiful, inspiring and sturdy for this visually dramatic setting.”
The year-long revamp of The Malls shopping centre kicked off in August last year.
The £5.9m facelift will spruce up the Alencon Link exterior in a bid to make the area more attractive to investors and visitors, with a clear roof canopy installed to protect shoppers from bad weather.
Borough council cabinet member for housing, health and culture, Councillor Cathy Osselton, said: “The improvements to The Malls will see the outdated shopping centre transformed into a fresh modern complex which will not only meet the needs of our residents but also attract shoppers from outside the borough into the town.
“At this time of change we felt it was only appropriate that we turn to the creative imaginations of the next generation of shoppers to provide the inspiration for a piece of public art to take centre stage at the entrance of the shopping centre.”
Steve was commissioned to create the piece by Basingstoke-based art organisation, The Making. The organisation’s education manager, Simon Taylor, said: “The pupils understand the creative process really well, and have given Steve some wonderful inspiration and original input which he can further develop and incorporate into finished pieces that everyone can enjoy.”
