Design and Art Australia Online

Born in Sydney in 1957, artist and designer John Skennar recalls painting from the age of twelve. Upon leaving school, he studied architecture at the University of Sydney while continuing his interests in painting both at the University of Sydney’s Tinsheds art workshop and at the John Ogburn Art Studio in The Rocks, Sydney. He graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1984 and developed an expertise in community-informed architectural and urban design, working closely with community members, local council representatives and often public artists in the development of collaborative and integrated designs for public spaces. Linking his diverse design and creative skills is Skennar’s commitment to community-informed cultural research in order to realise successful placemaking – the creation of public spaces that engage and attract a community.

In 1989 Skennar became a committee member of the NSW Community Arts Association at a time when leaders of international community-based public art movements, such as Common Ground (UK), began visiting Australia and broadened an understanding of placemaking and community. In the same year, the Australia Council initiated a program called Community Environment, Art and Design (CEAD) through which they funded community-based art and design projects. A similar policy encouraging the interdisciplinary (artists, designers and the local community) praxis of place-making was established by the NSW Ministry for the Arts. Through the combined influences from international exemplars and national and state policy incentives, Skennar was able to harness his design skills and visual art sensibilities to advance community-informed public art projects. By having the community share historical and contemporary stories, Skennar was better able to propose appropriate sites for art works in a manner consistent with contemporary theories of placemaking.

One of his early projects, Stanmore Common Ground (1992-95), exemplified his emerging approach to interdisciplinary art and design. Due to urban densification, the grounds of the Stanmore Public School became a shared facility for both the school and the community. Both Marrickville Council and the Department of Education entered into a deed of agreement in order to open the school grounds into community use. It was a collaborative project whereby Skennar worked with artists and local residents in design development and implementation. The resulting artworks, which included a mosaic pathway by Cynthia Turner, and murals by artists and students around the school, won the Down to Earth Foundation Award in 1996.

Skennar continued practising architectural and urban design but during a number of periods he also focused solely on public art and place-making, similar to the Stanmore Common Ground project. His roles in place-making/public art projects include community consultation, cultural research, public domain design and arts planning. This has led to his establishing a conceptual public art framework, which identifies the principle themes to be interpreted by artists using their own methods and media. Skennar believes this community informed art and design process that delivers a framework for the creation of new art brings meaning to a site and its surroundings.

In 2002 Skennar took up a three year appointment with WSROC (Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils) as the Regional Coordinator, Public Places. This position made full use of his multiple art and design skills. A highlight of this appointment was the successful development and establishment of Carrington Place, Katoomba (2004), an integrated public art and landscape design for which Skennar was able to harness the skills of Eco Design Consultants (community consultation), Integrated Design (heritage consultants and landscape architects), Nabis Architecture, Milne and Stonehouse (artist planners), Nerrine Martini (visual artist), Jacinta Tobin (writer) and Richard Stutchbury (sculptor). These participants, many from the local area, collaborated to revitalise the garden in front of the historic Carrington Hotel, win over the support of the heritage lobby, and provide a transformative cultural amenity to the street.

The Greenacre Town Centre Improvement Project won a 2008 Local Government and Shires Association Cultural Award for Cultural Infrastructure. This project had begun with workshops conducted in primary and secondary schools and a residents’ committee to follow through on art and design development, all under the direction of Skennar and Bankstown City Council. Skennar was the principle project artist who provided the twin themes of 'Sharing the Knowledge’ and 'Telling Your Story’. These themes formed the basis of five public artworks – on walls, objects, a light box – designed by Skennar and interpreted by artists such as Peter Day, Joanne Saad, Noelene Holten, Jamie Eastwood and Murmur Sayed Ahmed in consultation with the community. Due to this collaborative process during the design development phase, the public space created connected to local interests and needs. Through the public art, stories were able to be communicated about the place’s origins from an Aboriginal meeting place and early white settlement, to post-war migration and the diversity of the Greenacre community today.

Skennar believes that it is through this form of public art, drawing on knowledges gained from his years of work as a community-based architectural and urban designer attuned to valuable insights on a neighbourhood by its residents, that people of different cultures begin to understand each other and develop a sense of belonging to the local area.

Writers:

Dr Catherine De Lorenzo Note:
Jacqueline Yip Note:

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed