Fresh Creative Co. were commissioned by Swansea Council and the SA1 Development in conjunction with local businesses to produce a number of murals painted in and around the SA1 site Swansea.
As part of the design phase for this project we talked to members of communities in St Thomas, Port Tennant and Bonymaen to ask what themes or subjects they would like to see included in the murals.
Feedback ranged from Swansea history and musical influences to sports and pop culture.
We presented various options for the design themes and chosen ideas would be Copper, Coal, Heritage and Landmarks.
We researched the history of Swansea and collected images from Swansea Archives along with images from local residents in fact we used a young girls Great Grandfather who had worked on the docks as a feature in the mural.
As the Industrial Revolution took off, a series of works were built along the Tawe river from 1720 onwards and a series of mines were opened. Initially, the smelting works concentrated on copper but later Coal was brought down to them by waggonways and tramways.
Swansea achieved greater prominence with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and has been named “Copperopolis” where the lower Tawe valley became a mass of industry.
The Cambrian Works closed down as a smelter but reopened as a pottery in 1764 so pottery was also a strong contender for a design concept.
Once the three final designs had been chosen we worked out there would be 1000ft of mural in total.
The final concepts would be a mural depicting Swanseas’ copper/coal history, a mural showing the history of the docks and a mural of Swansea landmarks past/present.
All murals were painted with spray paint and sign painting enamel that is weather for resistant for up to 15 years.
We also set up a Facebook page to engage with the local community as well as a way to document and share the process.
