The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Businesses to saddle up for local heroes’ ‘mane’ event on artwork trail
Arbroath business and retail premises are being asked to saddle up – in a fight to brighten up the town’s streets and celebrate local heroes.
Artist Mandy Mcintosh installed her first Pageant for Gallivants pieces at Arbroath’s Townhouse Hotel and Caffe Barista last week.
Now she’s urging retailers to “adopt a horse” by giving some window space to the new community artwork project.
The “Clattering Cavalry” will be a trail of 100 large-patterned horses, designed by members of the community and professionally printed on vinyl, which can be stuck to shop windows.
Part of the Arbroath 2020+1 celebrations, the project aims to mark the town’s past – and its history in the making.
Pageant for Gallivants draws on the town’s rich history of pageantry – hence the horses.
“Arbroath has held more pageants than anywhere else in the UK,” says Mandy.
“When you look at old footage of the pageants, there’s tons of horses.
“There’s something about seeing and hearing lots of horses together that really stirs your emotions, and it’s not something we really see so much now.”
The project aims to bring that feeling of celebration into the 21st Century. Horses were traditionally reserved for nobility and royalty, but Mandy reckons that by making horses digitally, “everybody can have a horse”.
She says: “With this, the lollipop lady can have a horse, the hairdresser can have a horse.”
A cavalry, of course, isn’t just horses – it’s people too. Mandy wants the artwork to not only brighten up the town, but honour the residents, past and present, who have made it better.
Each horse, she says, will have a rider who is a “local hero”, with an interactive map explaining who each person is.
Mandy explains: “A local hero is a person who has done something significant that’s helped their community. I think, over the pandemic, we’ve gained more of a sense of how important community is, and how certain people can shine out because they really make the effort to support others.”
And although Arbroath boasts many famous poets and inventors of years gone by, Mandy stresses that anyone can be a local hero. She adds: “It’s not always the really learned or really wealthy people that make a difference – it’s often people who are working in a quieter way. And there’s no specific time limit – you can be a local hero but you lived 300 years ago, or you can be a local hero and you’re 30.
“What we’re giving people is a kind of history lesson but it’s also saying ‘you are the history’. History isn’t a faraway thing, it’s now. Special people are being born all the time.”
Mandy hopes that the trail will encourage people to walk around outside and explore parts of Arbroath they don’t normally go to – especially in the wake of the pandemic.
“I think that it’s great that lockdown caused a lot of stuff to be available online,” she says. “But we need lots of stuff in the real world as well. We need to find a way to reanimate space, and bring people back to the understanding that it’s safe to walk around.
“We can still be in our towns.”
The map for the trail will be available physically and digitally when the project is in place.
Mandy adds: “We’re going to try and make the map interactive, especially for children, so they can collect the horses. And maybe if they find them all, they get a special prize…”
The artworks for Arbroath 2020+1 festival will be displayed from July 1 to August 8.
Members of the community can nominate a hero by sending a DM to @ arbroath2021 or emailing info@arbroathfestival.com