The new commission looks to the future of cities and the people who inhabit them. Zoë is fascinated by cities. She is fascinated by how people’s interactions with each other, and with the city itself, are facillitated by its infrastructure, its road systems, its green spaces and its public services. And she fanticizes about how we might go about doing things differently.

The work is part of Your Space or Mine a programme of public art projects taking place nationally. Old Market Lawn, the site of the new commission, feels particularly fitting. Home to some of Bristol’s most historic buildings, the area began life as a bustling marketplace, before developing into a thriving centre of industry, entertainment and shopping but Second World War bombing cut Old Market off from the nearby city centre. This isolation brought about significant decline, further exacerbated by the building of a major ring road in the 1960s. Over the past 10 years though, Old Market’s fortunes have changed mainly because of the dynamic vision of people who live in and around the area. The epicentre of Bristol’s LGBTQ+ community, Old Market is now a hub of trendy shops and happening nightlife. The roster of commissions and artistic interventions that Your Space or Plan has planned for the coming months, then, can only serve to further stimulate the grassroots energy of the place, increasing the visibility of and opportunities for, Bristol’s arts scene.

Zoë’s new work dreams up a better future. ‘The People’s Carriage’ envisions an impossibly long scooter stretched across a billboard and populated by a gaggle of 15 or so people, from all walks of life. Going about their daily lives this repertoire of characters, each carrying their own personal stories, rub shoulders, forming an interconnected chain of mutual support. The title of the work is a deliberate nod to ‘The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft’, a collective of artists and activists famous in the city for the work they do to promote civil liberty in public spaces by nurturing community owned approaches to sharing ideas, skills and space.

Set just in front of the billboard, is a plinth featuring ‘Where’s my Supertram?’ made up of three life-sized metal cut-outs – two figures and a tram stop. This work strikes a different note, with the exhuberance of the superscooter now gone, we meet two figures one sitting and one standing below a sign saying ‘Trams Stop Here’. The tram they await was first proposed in 2001 but since then plans for a tram system have yet to go beyond the drawing board. Bristol – like many other UK cities outside of London – lags woefully behind the capital when in comes to investment in public transport; the consequences for the people who live here are real with bus routes being cut, services reduced and fares unaffordable.

Zoë Pencils uses this public platform, at a busy intersection, in a part of the city which has suffered long-term underinvestment to shed light on the importance of transport to making the city liveable again. Here the value of real community looms large. How we navigate our cities is crucial in embedding a sense of belonging, empathy and understanding in our everyday day interactions with our streets and our nighbours. Bristol prides itself for being a place of ‘love and solidarity’ – as project curator Sarah Stanton has pointed out and as the city’s summer of assemblies that countered the UK-wide anti-immigration rallies revealed – so Zoë’s personable troupe fit right in.

Here, Zoë speaks to Lizzie Lloyd about her experience of going to art school, how she has channeled the feeling of not quite belonging and the value of moving about in the city any way but by car!

Do you remember the moment that you decided you wanted to be an artist?

I’d like to say that there was this light bulb moment but probably not. I don’t think I realised that you could actually be an artist until I was about 15. I realised that there were artisitic or creative professions but not being an artist for the sake of it because at school you were taught about historical artists that didn’t seem to have relevance to you and your life.

Are there any moments that you feel have been pivotal in your career so far?

It took me quite a few goes to get on a degree after my foundation. It was on my third attempt that I finally got in. I don’t know why this was, but looking back, maybe my work was a bit too earnest, maybe I was looking at these social issues but with not enough subtlety. After one of these interviews I asked for feedback and they suggested I apply for a sociology course!

So how did you respond to this setback?

I felt rejected. It felt really really hard each time, at a time in your life – between childhood and adulthood – when you’re very sensitive. But it definitely spurred me on. So I spent two years working. My boyfriend at the time was at art school and so for those 2 years I went into art school with him almost everyday. I would use the dark rooms, the library, everything. When people finally found out that I wasn’t on the course they were shocked because I was one of their best students!

When you did get into what’s now called the London Metropolitan University, how did you find it?

Because I’d been working on my own for the previous two years I was quite independent – I was just happy to get on with my own thing. At that point I wasn’t really looking for mentorship I was just happy to be there and have the studio space and be with other people who were studying. Plus, I was making painting that brought together my interest in type design and illustration with a tongue-in-cheek humour, which at the time, in the mid to late 90s, was quite unfashionable. My tutors (who would all dress in black) were really into theory, installation, video work and photography so they didn’t have very much time for the kind of colourful static paintings that I was doing so I was largely left on my own.

Did you gel with any of your tutors?

There was one tutor, Patrick Brill, who goes by the name Bob and Roberta Smith who felt quite influential. He made work that was bold and colourful and full of slogans and it was such a relief from the super-serious black turtle-neck wearing tutor crew!

It sounds like, apart from the support of Bob and Roberta Smith, you didn’t fully feel accepted? Is that a fair assessment?

I think I always felt like a bit of an outsider but I think I was generally well received. It felt like they liked that I was doing something a bit different. Or at least that’s what I told myself!

Where does your interest in bringing social awareness into your art practice come from?

At school I spent a lot of time watching and observing people. My upbringing was quite particular: I have a black mum and a white dad so I was always aware of these different cultures and boxes that I never quite fitted, so again, I felt like a bit of an outsider. My parents got divorced when I was 7 and then we went from living in a house to living in a Bed and Breakfast to living in a council flat. There was a lot of fluctuation and I never quite settled (even though we were in the council flat for 10 years). I then went to sixth-form college in quite a wealthy part of north west London where I was introduced to people who had tennis courts and swimming pools in their back gardens. That was really eye opening, and another opportunity to observe different people and their interactions. One time, my friend came to knock for me on my council estate on her white pony called Sparkle! I wasn’t there, I was doing my Saturday job at the local supermarket!

That’s quite a colliding of worlds. Do you think it’s your awareness of these differences from such an early age that harnessed your desire to make art that engages with social issues?

That kind of jarring of different cultures and social strata had a strong impact. It felt like my middle-class friends had more freedom, or more options… they had access to things that I didn’t and yet being with people like that also gave me a passport into different communities and establishments that I wouldn’t have had access to on my own.

That interest in freedon – especially the sense of freedom that the context of a city offers is a really important to you. Can you tell us more about that?  

I have an interest in our streets, in how we use our streets, and who they’re for. One of the jobs I do alongside making art is working for a small organisation called Solve the School Run which is about trying to reduce car use and school-run traffic. I spend a lot of time thinking about this, taking photos of streets, meeting with councillors etc and thinking about how we can make our streets safe and accessible for everyone.

Hence your work ‘Where’s my Supertram?’ which appears on the route of Bristol’s old tram route.

The main generator for the trams in the city was bombed in 1941 marking the end of trams in Bristol. After that, buses and private cars became the main forms of transport. Now, given the interest in reducing pollution and the cost of car ownership, trams feel like a great option again. Discussion about bringing in a tram system in Bristol has been rumbling on for years but for various reasons these kinds of big infrastructure projects get shelved by local councils.

Before we had this conversation you sent me an image of Old Market from 1908 picturing the old tram which is really evocative.

Yes, the road is busy with people, there are no road markings, and hardly any vehicles visible or street furniture. Now our streets are so full of traffic but also signs and street furniture like bollards and things that tell us how we can and can’t move around the city.

Let’s talk about the work that you’ve made for Your Space or Mine One. One of the aims of the project is to make art and creativity accessible to all. How important is this to you and how did the very public-facing nature of ‘Where’s My Supertram’ impact your creative decision-making?

I’ve always thought about how my work is received by different people. I don’t come from an artistic family so I used think: What would my auntie think about this? How would my neighbour respond to this work? How would I explain my work to members of my family? Most people have very little interaction with art, they don’t go to galleries. So, it feels good to have an opportunity to meet people with the work directly on the street. It’s there for them.

What do you hope for the work?

I hope that when people see the work, they will have some empathy with the figures, that they might see themselves there. Not that they will necessarily see people who look like them but people who they might be interested in, people who are not what you expected, people who surprise you. You know, we’re taught from an early age that it’s wrong to stare but if we stop looking at people, we stop being interested in them, and we stop having empathy. I’m very used to going to places and being the only brown face and if people look, that’s fine. But if people lose their curiosity that feels like a sad day.  

‘Where’s my Supertram?’ was designed for a plinth in a busy intersection of Bristol. This must have been quite a challenge?

I haven’t actually made a lot of sculpture before – certainly not at this scale, in a public space or on a plinth. So it has all been quite new and a learning curve!

Your previous work has involved mostly 2D drawing and painting. The work for the plinth is made up of 3 cut-out illustrative images of a tram stop, a figure standing and a figure tting, looking at his phone. How did you manage the demands of making 3D work in a public space?

I’m still working with images here but I’m aware that how people are receiving those images changes everything. If they are leafing through a booklet and coming upon one of my images I think of the tactile quality of that close-up interaction with the feel of the page and the smell of the ink. Whereas with ‘Where’s my Supertram?’ people might be looking at this sculpture at a distance, in passing, like from the top deck of a bus, or in their car waiting in traffic. I like the idea that initailly they might not notice it but on the sixth time passing it they might look out of the window and suddenly see it. I like the idea that it doesn’t have to be one big hit but that its effect might build up.

The plinth has specific connotations in the history of art around the idea that art should be put on a pedastal and elevated beyond the everyday. Did you feel like you could embrace the idea of a plinth that has an inherent sense of hierarchy or did you want to underplay it?

Well one of my figures has his legs dangling off the edge of the plinth so it changes the dynamics of the interaction of the plinth, making it less reverential. But I also thought more about the fact that the plinth played a very practical purpose to lift the work up and make it more visible as a way to communicate that this is something to take notice of. I think that’s why I was thinking about the view from the top deck of a bus. It seemed like the plinth gave me the opportunity to reach some people that I might not have otherwise.

Can you talk to me about your interest in the cut-out? Cut-outs remind me of pop-up books or stage props. Is this a deliberate reference?

I have worked with cut-outs quite a lot. The thing with paintings or drawings on a wall is that they’re quite familiar, with clear confines; they’re comforting because we all know the rules of them. I like how with cut-outs you can bring drawings into the room, you can walk around them, you can be up close to them. I like how cut-outs feel like somewhere between drawing and sculpture. I like how they can draw you in to focus on the figure alone.

So how are you using the billboards which will appear next to the plinth? 

I’m drawing a very long hire scooter with maybe 20 people riding along together. I love the idea that you might be able to just jump on the back of this ridiculously long scooter, like a bus! I’m inspried by seeing kids playing out in their neighbourhoods, by seeing two people on a scooter or having a backie on the back of a bike, freewheeling and having fun together. For some people that is horrifying and represents a kind of anarchy and danger. But it feels to me like a more natural, more fun way to travel. You know you see how people in other parts of the world travel with a whole family on a moped, with all their shopping and a ladder. I love this kind of thing.

It’s like the work is a call to encourage us to reset how we see and move around in our city, trying to reignite a sense of joy.

When you walk or cycle or use public transport you have so many more impromptu interactions with other people and with your enviornment that you just don’t get in a car. Though the plinth and the billboard are stand alone pieces of work they complement each other. One is quite silly and joyous and the other is quite serious with two people waiting ….

Waiting for a tram that is yet to be built. It feels like the experience of waiting for a Bristol bus!

Originally, the work for the plinth was going to depict two people waiting for a bus. Although I haven’t lived here that long I’ve stood at plenty of Bristol bus stops with my mum (she’s lived here for 15 years). I know that frustration of waiting for buses that take ages to come, buses that never arrive, buses that dispapear completely. It was a real shock coming from London where you could see and feel the effect of lots of investment in public transport over the past 25 years. In London public transport is viable: it’s used by lots of different people, and is used not just by old people or people who can’t afford another method of traveling.

The plinth work feels like it is an exhortation to the council to invest in public transport for the city.

Yes, maybe ‘Where’s my Supertram?’ is more of a call to the authorities to tell them that the people are waiting.