Arts & Culture  News

Call for artists: New Covent Garden Market Vitrine Art Commission

Installation view of BLOOM!

Published on
March 11, 2021

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VINCI St. Modwen (VSM) is seeking proposals from artists for the final edition of Vitrine, a paid commission for a 20m long public art space on Nine Elms Lane.

After two successful years, they’re returning with the final iteration of Vitrine, London’s freshest art commission celebrating London’s oldest wholesale market.

Vitrine Art Commission is initiated and funded by VINCI St. Modwen, in partnership with Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) and delivered in collaboration with Art Night, London’s all-night free contemporary art festival.

New Covent Garden Market is the UK’s largest fresh produce market. Its community of traders keep a discerning London fed and flowered by supplying the capital’s chefs and florists with wonderful fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants.

The Flower Market sits directly on Nine Elms Lane opposite the famed Battersea Power Station.

As the suppliers to London’s incredibly talented and ambitious chefs and florists, the market’s responsibility to them and to London is to bring the most delicious, beautiful, local and seasonal, obscure and hard-to-find fruit, veg and flowers that are grown in the UK and across the world.

With a long legacy of supplying London’s best businesses with the finest fresh food and flowers, the last few months have seen the market face one of the biggest challenges in its history. The Covid-19 lockdown dramatically affected trade, with an overnight closure to the hospitality industry. However, the market’s legacy has been strengthened by traders’ determination and resilience as they continued to feed London.

Several businesses were able to rapidly react to the demand for fresh produce, moving from a business-to-business proposition to serving consumers directly via home delivery boxes of fresh fruit, vegetables and lots more. It opened the market to a new set of clients who are now busy spreading the word about the wonderful, diverse, produce that New Covent Garden Market has to offer.

The building façade has a 20m x 5m vitrine that is now an established public art space. The vitrine sees 25,000 vehicles pass by every day – that’s over 9 million a year – and many people walking by too. This is a vast art canvas with an enormous public audience.

The brief

VINCI St. Modwen are looking for artwork proposals that celebrate the themes of fruit, vegetables, flowers and/or plants.

The artwork should serve to build a closer relationship between the market and Londoners by putting the spotlight on the wonderful produce that makes the market so renowned.

The commission can feature photography, painting, text work or any other two-dimensional medium.

The artwork will be replicated onto perforated vinyl sheeting and affixed to the frontage of the market on Nine Elms Lane. The Vitrine dimensions are 20,610mm x 4,800mm.

How to enter

Entries are open from Thursday 11 March 2021 to Thursday 27  May 2021. Call for entries will be closed on Thursday 27 May at 6pm.

The application form and guidance notes are located on the New Covent Garden Market website .


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