Member Article

STUDENTS PARK THEIR ART FOR CHARITABLE INITIATIVE

Students from Parrs Wood High School in Didsbury joined forces with Manchester based online parking reservation business, ParkCloud, last week to launch this year’s PARK(ing) Day initiative.

Equipped with spray paint and under the watchful guidance of the school’s Head of Art, John Davison and Russell Meehan aka Qubek, creator of the now iconic Manchester bee mural, the students were asked as part of the event’s competition guidelines to create a design that depicted Manchester and tailor it to fit a standard parking space.

PARK(ing) Day is an internationally recognised event held annually, which aims to highlight the need for more open space in urban areas by transforming ‘paid for’ parking spaces into temporary creative, public areas.

This year’s initiative is being championed across the city region by ParkCloud and will see budding designers, artists and local students compete to be one of the lucky five shortlisted to battle it out live in a city centre car park on PARK(ing) Day (15th September). Each shortlisted artist will replicate their design in front of the public, who will be asked to vote for their favourite design by making a voluntary donation to ParkCloud’s chosen event charity, the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund.

To create their designs, the students at Parrs Wood High School took inspiration from iconic Manchester architecture, famous Manchester faces and even conceptualised how they saw the future of the city’s landscape.

Parrs Wood High School’s Head of Art, John Davison, said:

“ParkCloud has presented us with a fantastic opportunity with PARK(ing) Day for our students to get creative in an entirely new type of setting. It’s been great for them to get away from the usual classroom environment and they have really enjoyed the challenge to create an inspiring design to a brief while also raising money for charity.”

Since its conception in San Francisco 12 years ago, PARK(ing) Day has evolved significantly and is now celebrated in over 35 countries[1] across the globe.

Commenting on the launch of PARK(ing) Day, ParkCloud’s Managing Director, Mark Pegler, said:

“Built-up, urban city centres rarely offer the opportunity for the community to get involved with creatively revamping public spaces, so we’re pleased to be bringing PARK(ing) Day to Manchester this year and in addition, raising funds for an extremely deserving charity.

“This is the third year we have been actively involved with the initiative and it’s inspiring to see up and coming artists from Parrs Wood High School kick off the 2017 competition. We’re urging the creative talent of Manchester that want to make their mark – literally – to get in touch and join the competition.”

To find out more about getting involved in Manchester’s PARK(ing) Day event, please email marketing@parkcloud.com for details.

https://www.parkcloud.com/en-GB/airport-parking/manchester

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gemma Killackey .