Cath Campbell: '21 arches instead of a gate' Woodside Primary Academy, Walthamstow, UK

Image: Cath Campbell, 21 arches instead of a gate, 2014, Painted steel, tarmac (Public Commission, Walthamstow, London) (CC0087) Courtesy of the artist and Workplace Gallery, UK 21 Arches instead of a gate 21 arches instead of a gate, an ambitious new artwork by Cath Campbell for Woodside Primary Academy, sees a constellation of elegant steel archways transform a redundant gateway into a graceful folly full of imaginative potential. Inhabiting the unused space between two brick pillars, the new artwork responds to the aesthetic of the adjacent Victorian railings: extending and arcing the black vertical lines into towering forms, stretching up and over each other and coiling back into the school playground. 21 arches instead of a gate consciously injects the redundant transitional space with a multitude of new threshold spaces, arranged to act both as functional boundary and object of contemplation, exploration and play. Cath Campbell worked with pupils from Woodside Primary Academy during the design process. The work forms part of an ongoing series of sculptural interventions by the artist in which she works directly within architecture and the built environment, re-arranging and manipulating functional materials and objects to transform the familiar into something unexpected, challenging the boundaries between art, architecture and design and deliberately undermining any sense of certainty, stability or permanence within the built form. About Waltham Forest Council - Creating a better place Residents told the Council that regeneration in the borough was their top priority. They wanted better streets, shopping and leisure. So at the beginning of 2013 Waltham Forest Council promised they would start to deliver on their regeneration commitments, and as residents will have seen over the last year the Council really is delivering their ambition of creating a better place by; enhancing nine high street areas, refurbishing 28 play areas, improving all of our leisure centres and bringing a cinema to the borough. The Council secured over £160million of investment in 2013 and expects that to rise to over £700million as we move towards 2018.