World renowned automotive engineering company Cosworth joined forces with Fermynwoods to host artist Virginie Litzler as part of our inaugural Art Work Placement project.
Art Work Placement brings together professional artists and businesses to develop creative solutions to business challenges and to identify new ways of thinking about processes and culture.
The new art work, Conversations, is the culmination of Virginie’s time at Cosworth, after spending 5 days with the business talking to and working alongside their staff.
Rather than a static photograph on a wall, the art work is a sensory experience installed in the corridor that links Cosworth’s state-of-the-art Advanced Manufacturing Centre to the rest of the building.
Virginie, whose work is based on movement and how it relates to daily life, has arranged cardboard boxes, varying in size from large to small, to change the flow of the corridor. The boxes contain items inspired by her conversations and work with the people of Cosworth, from sketches to sculptures to images from the archive room of how the landscape of Cosworth used to be.
What might initially appear as sculptures or plinths can also be recognised as industrial paraphernalia typical to Cosworth. On closer inspection the boxes, which are on wheels, carry traces of movement from engineers working on bespoke tasks at Cosworth. The boxes themselves can be moved in similar movements based on their fixed wheel positions.
“As people usually don’t have time to stop in the corridor, I wanted to create something that would change the way they navigate and interact with the space. Because of how the boxes are laid out, people can no longer avoid talking to each other and sharing in the experience. It’s a great way to meet people you’ve worked with but never spoken to during your time at Cosworth”
Virginie Litzler
The venture demonstrates our mission of using art to ‘infiltrate the everyday’, this time in business, demonstrating how arts and culture are essential to making Northamptonshire a great place to work, live, learn and play.
