Coedylan Comprehensive School Brick Bench Project
Working with Helen Clifford and Michele Browne, the artists leading our project, we developed the idea of creating a bench which could be placed outside our school’s new sports centre. We looked at different designs by artists who worked with brick and we visited Cardiff Bay to look at public art works and how they related to the environment they were in. We also took inspiration from the Artes Mundi exhibition which was being held at the National Museum Cardiff as well as the Museum's ceramics collection. We started working on individual designs and then combined our personal ideas to form the final collective design.
The bench is an 'S' shape and has been decorated with images which form three separate elements – the old bridge in Pontypridd which is a part of our school journey; the river with a snake whose shedding skin signifies our journey through life; and images of activities representing our favourite subjects, art, IT, PE, music and drama, which encompass our dreams and hopes for the future. The bench at our school will give people the chance to sit down and enjoy views of Glyncoch and Cilfynydd mountains, which stand at either side of our school.
"I really enjoyed making a bench for my school for everybody to use"
"This bench is like a winding journey of school life"