Democracy Benches

On the 7th November 2008, 180 people paid £10 each, and gathered in the Unicorn Theatre, London Bridge, to decide what to do with £1800 of their box office takings in a game of Who Wants to Be…? – the ‘ask the audience’ game show. You can read about that here.

After a fantastic two hour session of making proposals, discussing and voting on what to do together, they decided to commission someone to design ‘Democracy Bench’, to be installed in a local park. So, we found a wonderful location for the bench, and then sent out a call for proposals.

 

The response was phenomenal! We received some amazing proposals that are ready for consideration by the participants and you – the public. You can only vote if you attended the event and paid a tenner, but everyone can comment on the proposals, and the artists and designers have been invited to answer questions on their work.

Whichever bench has the most votes by the 5th April is the winner, and will receive the 1800 quid commission!

If you were at the event, but don’t have a login to the site, please let us know: bench@whowantstobe.co.uk.

5 Responses to “Democracy Benches”

  1. Tyler says:

    Hello,

    Wow there are some really cool ideas there. I have one question. Are we allowed to vote for more than one bench? Or is it one person, one vote?

    • saul says:

      Hi Tyler,

      You can vote for as many as you like – it’s a preferential vote, so the bench that gets the most votes wins!

  2. Tyler says:

    Thanks Saul.

    I would really encourage people to look at the full proposals as some of the chosen example photos are not very representative of what the designers are actually putting forward.

    Right i’m off to do some voting.

  3. […] bench commission call for proposals went online, and soon gathered some fantastic responses. On the 5th April 2009, the winning bench was John Kennedy’s “The Thing“, which […]

  4. […] are very pleased to announce that the winner of the hotly contested Democracy Bench design competition is the wonderful John Kennedy, with his design for ‘The Thing’. The Thing – by John […]

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