‘City People’ sculpture: where did it go?

City People, as the artwork was known, was the brainchild of Joan Walsh and Charles Smith - two young Irish sculptors who, in the early 1970s, were working on their first ever major public art project.

The husband-and-wife team - living in Australia since the mid 1980s where they operate their own studio - are now regarded as among the world’s premier sculptors.

Their work - which is on display around the world - is so highly regarded that they were awarded the Australian Prime Minister’s Federal Centenary Medal in 2001.

However, it was back in the early 1970s that the young couple’s ‘City People’ project scooped top prize in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s prestigious ‘Art in Context’ competition. The 30 foot long sculpture of interlocking lines and shapes carved in high relief would go on to form the focal point of the newly-developed urban park at Foyle Street.

So proud are the Irish couple of their Derry sculpture that it’s featured on their website - www.smithsculptors.com - alongside their more famous projects. But, believe it or not, the Smiths’ website is the only place where ‘City People’ still exists as it was unceremoniously bulldozed to make way for a car park.

As part of a radical redevelopment project at Foyle Street in the mid-1990s, ‘City People’ was simply torn down.

It’s understood no effort was made to either relocate it or remove it and preserve it. All that’s left of the sculpture is documentation and a few photographs.

A few years ago, Joan Walsh-Smith queried the whereabouts of the sculpture after trying to locate it on Google street maps. She said that, when she realised that Foyle Street had been redeveloped, she assumed her artwork had been relocated elsewhere.

Following an inquiry from the ‘Derry Journal’, Derry City Council - which ceased to exist in 2015 - confirmed that ‘City people’ had been “decommissioned” - a technical term for demolished.

Joan Walsh-Smith was, understandably, gobsmacked at the revelation: “I’m shocked and appalled to discover that my prize-winning major artwork has been ‘demolished’, evidently to make way for urban development,” she told the ‘Journal’ at the time.

“We were never consulted on any change to the site or the status or plans for my sculpture. No attempt was made, to our knowledge, to contact us.”

Mrs. Walsh-Smith also refuted claims that, when the Foyle Street site no longer became viable, the sculpture, in effect, became defunct with it.

“As the artist, I fully accept that, in the contemporary world, artworks inevitably have to be moved from time to time. However, this does not mean that they have to be destroyed which I consider to be a stupendous act of cultural vandalism.”

She also rejected suggestions that the sculpture could not have been removed and relocated to another location without damaging it.

“The sculpture was comprised of segments of reinforced concrete 150 mm thick which is virtually indestructible,” she said.

In her letter to Derry City Council, Mrs. Smith asked that her sculpture be reinstated in the city.

“I believe this can quite easily be achieved from the moulds which are available in perfect condition,” she wrote.

So, could we, some time in the future, see ‘City People’ reinstated in the city. Watch this space.