A Place in the World is a new documentary film that explores the sixty-year career of Garth Evans (b. 1934), a visionary artist, his attempts to bridge worlds and his resulting fraught relationship with the public. In 1972, Evans, a rising star in the London art world, produced Untitled Sculpture, a large steel sculpture in Cardiff through a nation-wide public art program. The next day, he went out on the street, incognito and stood by the sculpture with a tape recorder in hand to record the reactions of the community. After the project, the sculpture was relocated to Leicestershire where it remained hidden and neglected for almost fifty years.
With humour and unflinching honesty, the film explores deep themes of history and class, community and memory as it examines the role of public art and the complicated role between the artist and their public. Britain during the 1970’s was a place of social tumult but also a period of tremendous creative expression. At its core, the film is a moving story about the difficulties and dangers inherent in the modern human struggle to transcend social class; all of which is revealed as the film tracks the creation, installation, removal, loss, and decades later in 2019, the reinstallation of the work through public support that came to embody the ire and yearning of an entire city.
The film raises powerful and timely questions about some of our most basic assumptions regarding the role of the artist in society whether as oracle, provocateur, or unifier. A Place in the World celebrates the uncanny power of art and the power of human perseverance.
The screening of A Place in the World is followed by a conversation with Garth Evans and Sam Cornish, chaired by Indie A. Choudhury.
A Place in the World (2025); Director, David Shayne; Executive Producers, West City Films; Producer, Leila Philip. Made by Pulpit Rock Films. This screening is held in partnership with Fundacion CALOSA, Irapuato and Tiro Al Blanco, Guadalajara.
Organised by Indie A. Choudhury, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art, The Courtauld.
With contributions from:
Garth Evans is central to the narrative of British sculpture. He relocated to the U.S.A. in 1979. Evans has had over one hundred solo exhibitions in museums and commercial galleries globally. His work is held by major public collections in the U.S.A. Great Britain, Europe, South America and Australia, including M.O.M.A and the Tate Gallery. His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including major surveys of British sculpture. Evans has a significant reputation as a teacher and was one of the primary architects of the now legendary “A” course, St. Martin’s School of Art, London, 1969 – 73. In 2019, MIT published a comprehensive documentation of the Course, The Locked Room, Four Years that Shook Art Education.
Sam Cornish is a writer and curator. Recent exhibitions include Unreal City: Abstract Painting in London, Saatchi Gallery, 2024, These Mad Hybrids: John Hoyland and Contemporary Sculpture, Bristol and Sheffield, 2024-45, Garth Evans; A Place in the World, Irapuato, Mexico, 2024, Mali Morris: Returning, Newcastle, 2024. Amongst his publications are Ten Sculpture by Tim Scott 1961-71 (Sansom & Co, 2025); Frank Bowling: Sculpture (Ridinghouse, 2022), John Hoyland: The Last Paintings (Ridinghouse, 2021), Mali Morris: Painting (Royal Academy, 2019), Stockwell Depot 1967-79 (Ridinghouse, 2015), John Panting: Sculpture (Sansom & Co, 2012). He is curator at the John Hoyland Estate.
Indie A. Choudhury is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art (Global Black Diasporas & Black Studies) at The Courtauld Institute of Art.