U-Turn Round – a space arts

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Quite industrial in design and powered completely via wind-up energy, the U-Turn is very much ‘on-theme’ for the location.

The Ford Transit Factory in Southampton was shut in 2013 (to the disappointment of the 500 strong workforce) after 40 years of producing the popular transit van. Now home to a vast new industrial and logistics centre by specialist developers Mountpark. Part of the site was set aside for a functional public art installation. ‘a space’ arts were appointed to oversee the commission and worked with Southampton based artist, Sarah Filmer to develop a proposal for social seating in the space that drew upon the rich oral histories collected by the TRANSITions project when the Factory closed.

Retaining the original factory gates, the modern seating area is designed to memorialise the old factory whilst offering workers an outdoor space to relax.

At each end of the space you’ll find a U-Turn Round, loaded onto each of these outdoor audio units are clips from oral histories that were recorded before the factory was shut, which alongside additional signage helps to inform users of the now gone factory which played such a vital role to the local community.

Quite industrial in design and powered completely via wind-up energy, the U-Turn is very much ‘on-theme’ for the location. Each U-Turn also boasts full colour batwings which tell users what audio can be accessed.