Photo: Eleanor Shipman
Synopsis
Charting Change was a two-year art commission that took place during the lead up to the University of Bristol’s new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, which opened in September 2026. This commission explored the industrial histories around the site of the new campus and the local area, alongside it’s technological futures.
Artist Ellie Shipman led the process, and worked with collaborating artists, local people, industry partners and the University to deliver a creative programme of participatory events and temporary artworks to explore these themes.
This participatory programme informed the design of Soft Monument, a new permanent public artwork for the Story Exchange, a publicly accessible space on the ground floor of the new TQEC building.
Description
Programme activity
The commission gave back to those involved through creative skills development, knowledge exchange and social activity. Across Autumn 2024 the programme included weaving workshops with Ayeeyo and Awoowo a network of Somali Elders, led by Dhaqan Collective at Easton Community Centre and Wellspring Settlement. It also included a public exhibition titled Work In Progress at St Anne’s House by Ellie Shipman and Jack Stiling.
This week-long exhibition in November 2024 was accompanied by it’s own public events programme, all honouring women’s work. The artists collaborated with the Barton Hill History Group, who contributed historical artefacts and research towards the exhibition, and the contractor Sir Robert McAlpine to source recyclable materials from the TQEC construction site to create mechanical, kinetic and interactive sculptures.
"Through this commission I wanted to explore what the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus development represents: a global university with local civic ambitions; a changing city with a challenging past; a community with multiple identities and an industrial heartland moving into an unknown future."Lead Artist Ellie Shipman
Description
Spring /Summer 2025 saw a whole host of creative exchange take place as part of Charting Change.
The artist team collaborated with Bristol Common Press – an historic printing press and academic team at the University’s Arts Complex – to host a series of letterpress workshops exploring how women have shaped industry. For one workshop women in Engineering were invited to create a collaborative letterpress poster visualising the different roles and titles we all carry in different ways, blending the personal and professional.
The posters produced with different groups of participants were featured on A0 poster frames at the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus hoardings on Cattlemarket Road during 2025.
Ellie Shipman and Jack Stiling hosted two construction play workshops for families, called Girls Build Amazing Things at the Little Library at the Barton Hill Micro Campus. Jack created wreaking ball sculptures and the children were invited to build their own buildings or ball runs then knock them down. UoB architect Claire White-Sharman supported a session and talked to young girls about her career. New reading books for the library were ordered to support learning around women in engineering.
Ellie also worked with University of Bristol Botanic Gardens to host Somali elders group Ayeeyo and Awoowo to explore grasses from around the world similar to those used in Somali weaving. Ayeeyo and Awoowo members also took part in a visit to the textile design studio and project fabricators Dash & Miller in St Phillips to exchange knowledge on traditional weaving practices.
The exhibition Work In Progress, speaks to all kinds of work in progress – from creatively responding to the evolving construction site of the new campus; to exploring the work in progress of how we work – and how far we still have to come in recognising who shaped local industry historically, to who is shaping community and research now and in the future’.Lead Artist Ellie Shipman
In May 2025 the Charting Change artist team also worked with with women-led metal workshop WTF Workshops to co-host a women welders workshop for local women over 60. This workshop was introduced by Garry Atterton from the Barton Hill History Group who wrote a presentation on the history of women welders in Barton Hill. The participants made crowns and sculptures acknowledging the hidden labour of women in their lives, which resulted in a photography series by Ellie, which were later shown on public hoardings in Barton Hill.
Charting Change will built on the TQEC artist residencies of 2018-19, and a range of public commissions that have already taken place as part of the TQEC development. This is one of three major new Public Art Commissions for Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, the others include Wild Spaces lead by Room 13 Harclive and the Public Realm Commission by John Wood and Paul Harrison.
"Charting Change is an opportunity for artists and local people to work with us to understand the rich histories of the Temple Quarter site, and to weave those stories into the fabric of the University’s presence in a new part of the city. It will help set the tone for a campus which will be a meeting point for expertise and experiences from across society."Tom Sperlinger, Academic Lead for Engagement at the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus
Further Reading:
Ellie Shipman is a visual and participatory artist based in Bristol. Ellie studied BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art, UAL (2008 – 11) and MSc Sustainable Development at UWE (2015 – 16).
Ellie is interested in what it is to be a womxn; the experience of birth and new m/otherhood as well as notions of community; sustainability and hidden or unacknowledged labour. These themes are explored, shared and reflected on through multimedia artworks using found objects, textiles, pattern, collage and installation. Works are often site specific, participatory or interactive – including people in research, process and product.
Ellie is the Lead Artist on Charting Change, a two-year public art commission for the University of Bristol consisting of a programme of workshops, events and temporary artworks with Programme Artist Jack Stiling and visiting artists. The process will inform her design of a large textile public artwork in the university’s new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus opening in 2026.
Through Charting Change Ellie is exploring how womxn have shaped the industrial history of Barton Hill, St Philips and The Dings, inviting the public to share their stories and take part.
