Fosse Foxes Part 1- An Introduction to our Wildest project yet.
This Christmas was a little strange for everyone, but especially when Lauren's house was filled with 14 larger than life-size fibreglass fox sculptures (to help finish off the leftover brussel sprouts of course). These ‘Fosse Foxes’ make up part of the opening celebrations for the new ‘Fosse Park West’ Shopping Centre Developments, set to open Spring 2021. This collection of 14 foxes will be joined by an additional 11 foxes to make up the ‘Fosse Foxes Trail’ a public art trail which will be located around the shopping centre, showcasing community groups, artists and local attractions.
Architectural imaginings of the new Fosse Park West Site.
First Contact with Fosse
We were first contacted by Fosse Park in August 2019 to pitch for a large outdoor mural in their new shopping centre. We were unsuccessful due to lack of experience but were keen to stay in touch with their further developments and community projects. We sent updates of our other murals we had completed in the meantime and eventually was introduced to Lesley, who would be managing the Fosse Foxes project.
Initially we were wary of such a project, it seemed like a huge undertaking with a lot of question marks. However, it sounded exciting and we do love a challenge, something a bit ridiculous. With Lauren living just around the corner and remembering buying her first school uniform from the shopping centre, Fosse Park is a dream client and this was an opportunity not to be missed.
The Brief
Given the global pandemic our initial brief, received in February 2020, had to adapt slightly. The original plan was to guide 14 in person workshops, 10 of which were community groups and 4 VIP groups. These sessions would have been very hands on designing and painting the groups fox sculptures over a series of days. Arguably a logistical nightmare we had yet to figure out.
Our brief from September 2020 looked a bit different. We were to now do everything digitally. This included designing and painting without as much direct input from the groups which brought up new challenges we will expand on in our next blog post!
The Community Groups
Working with community groups was an exciting prospect to us. They were all local to Leicester and had different backgrounds and purposes. The groups include a children's charity, wildlife trust and young carers group. Designing alongside these groups posed a huge challenge due to the varied audiences, we will discuss how we tackled this in the next blog post…
So that's the fox out of the bag! Make sure to read our blog posts for Part 2 and Part 3 of the process to get the full story or watch our vlog below for the full process!