Cycling Visionaries Awards - Project Details

Twincity Artistic Bike racks!

The presented project is connecting urban cycling and art through placing a series of artistic bike racks in to the urban space. They are promoting cycling with unusual style and are trying to reach out to the wider public by attacking their senses in an artistic way. Project is progressive, international and has bike promoting character.

The presented project is connecting urban cycling and art through placing a series of artistic bike racks in to the urban space. They are promoting cycling with unusual style and are trying to reach out to the wider public by attacking their senses in an artistic way. First art bike racks were made by David Byrne in New York and his initiative has now spread worldwide. Artistic bike racks are being built on all continents as a creative way of directing attention to urban cycling worldwide.

In Bratislava first two bike racks were built at cultural facilities, the Academy of musical arts and the Academy of visual arts. They became directly very popular as they represent an interesting combination of artistic expression and practicality of a medium size bike rack. Students aren’t using those racks for only parking their bicycles, but are also using them for their artistic work. Both racks also became an interesting sight for foreign tourists that take pictures with them.

This project would like to introduce such artistic racks to students of Sculpture and product design in Vienna and Bratislava. Both schools are located in interesting locations and offer a good location for placing an artistic bike rack that will be both popular, useful and will also help to improve quality of the public place around both educational facilities. Thus, the success of both existing artistic racks could be repeated and the message spread also to a new location in Bratislava and also to Vienna. Both bike racks will be available to around 500 students studying at both locations.

We also aim at improving cross border interaction by implementing a concept, when the students of Wien Art University will place their site specific art bike racks to Bratislava. This will be done within a specified academic course as a group assignment. The same will happen in Bratislava, where students will create a site specific artistic bike rack for a location in Vienna. This will enable an interacting and creative cross-border interaction. Both Austrian and Slovak students will meet in Bratislava and then Vienna in order to present their rack projects not only among themselves, but also by juries from the schools (art concept), Cycling NGOs (possibility of practical bike locking) and City council.

The first artistic bike racks were manufactured and placed in Bratislava by sculpturists from University of Arts in Bratislava during September 2011. Now it’s time to expand this idea both in Bratislava and also abroad to Vienna. This project represents a unique opportunity for artistic collaboration across the Slovak-Austrian border. It is also a chance to place one’s unique product directly to the public space and observe how it blends together with its surroundings and interacts with its users.

People behind the project are involved in Cyklokoalicia (NGO advocacing bicycles in Bratislava) Bikekitchen Bratislava (voluntery community workshop)