More money needed to fix Mute Meadow public artwork in Derry

At this month’s Business and Culture Committee meeting members were asked to approve council’s delivery plan for the Business and Culture Directorate for 2025/26, and SDLP councillor Rory Farrell noted that the plans did not include repairs to lighting at Mute Meadow.

“I’ve raised a number of times in this chamber and I don’t see it on the business plan for this year,” he said. “So we have this art installation at the end of the Peace Bridge and it hasn’t been working at all since it was installed many, many years ago.

“I’ve raised it twice in this committee and the feedback was that a budget was in place, we were awaiting project management resources to finally make Mute Meadow operational, so is anything being done this year about it?”

Director of Business and Culture, Stephen Gillespie, said the estimated cost for repair was “higher than what we had set aside as a contingency”.

Mr Gillespie added: “So we’re in discussions with TEO (The Executive Office). There are also works to make it less prone to breaking down in the future, so that meant that the budget wasn’t sufficient.”

“There is a deficit in the budget so we can either do so much with what we have or we can fix it properly, and that requires additional resources.

“That’s the decision members would have to take, with all the other capital projects that we have on the table.

“We’ve been pulling all this information together for members and then that’ll come to the GSP (Governance and Strategic Planning Committee) for decision.

“It’s not a fortune of money by any means, but it just has to be a decision with all the other capital projects that we have.”

Mute Meadow was the largest public artwork in Ireland when it was unveiled back in June 2011. It was created by two internationally recognised artists, Vong Phaophanit, a former Turner Prize nominee (1993) and Claire Oboussier.

The artwork is made up of columns that are designed to “reflect and refract” light and create “a play of shadows” before becoming a “silent field of light against the night time sky”.

Originally, the palette of colours which illuminate dthe installation was inspired by the striking stained glass windows in Derry’s Guildhall.

Andrew Balfour,

Local Democracy Reporter.