gems---the idea

A new system for public transport will be introduced in the Cambridge region in 2009: a bus service that runs from St. Ives through Cambridge down to Trumpington will give an alternative to using a car for many people. Yet the great difference to a normal bus service is that it has it´s own track on a concrete railway that can not be used by any other vehicle, so it will be very reliable and punctual. This `Guided Bus´ will pass towns and villages in the fens, the new town `Northstowe´, the city of Cambridge as well as very traditional villages such as Over or Histon. On it´s way along an old railway line that had been disused in the nineties it will stop at places of very different social structures:
old villages embedded in the landscape with a long history, the city as well the `new villages´ set up in very short time to accommodate thousands of commuters who need a home for their families but also quick access to their work. The range of people living in this area could not be wider, the task for city planners, architects, traffic planners, engineers and artists could not be more complex. The new guided busway will connect very different communities and places - people who might not know much about each other but share a bus service every day that works as a bridge.


	A new system for public transport will be introduced in the Cambridge region in 2009: a bus service that runs from St. Ives through Cambridge down to Trumpington will give an alternative to using a car for many people. Yet the great difference to a normal bus service is that it has it´s own track on a concrete railway that can not be used by any other vehicle, so it will be very reliable and punctual. This `Guided Bus´ will pass towns and villages in the fens, the new town `Northstowe´, the city of Cambridge as well as very traditional villages such as Over or Histon. On it´s way along an old railway line that had been disused in the nineties it will stop at places of very different social structures: old villages embedded in the landscape with a long history, the city as well the `new villages´ set up in very short time to accommodate thousands of commuters who need a home for their families but also quick access to their work. The range of people living in this area could not be wider, the task for city planners, architects, traffic planners, engineers and artists could not be more complex. The new guided busway will connect very different communities and places - people who might not know much about each other but share a bus service every day that works as a bridge.		The sculpture `gems´ seeks to help strengthen this bridge by giving insights into other people´s lives, the places they love and their hidden secrets. It will be set up at Trumpington Park and Ride Terminal where passengers wait for their bus and have some time to think and watch. There is a great potential of knowledge, something like a collective memory that people who live in the same region share unknowingly. Neighbours often don´t know much about each other - but they often visit the same places. The landscape bears many a gem: It could be a little bench under an old tree with a lovely view somewhere in the countryside, a magic place that somebody always comes back to. The gem could also be inside someone´s shed in their garden - or maybe just their favourite place in their living room: it all depends on their way of life and their point of view. This sculpture is all about understanding, about the love people have, their landscape, their environment and the places they appreciate.