Project: Animate Cinema & Leisure Complex
Location: Preston

Client: Preston City Council
Lead Architects: Leach Rhodes Walker

Landscape Architects: Planit-IE

Contractors: Eric Wright Group

Developers: Maple Grove Developments

Artwork Budget: £30,000

Site Programme: 24 months
Service: Public Art Sub-Consultant
Artists: *Aardman (Animation )

Foundry: Castle Fine Arts Foundry

In March 2021, Preston City Council was awarded £20.9m from the Government’s national Towns Fund initiative, for the city Harris Quarter. It forms a unique part of the city centre undergoing a £200m investment programme to transform its historic buildings, sites and public realm into a diverse culture, leisure and employment offering. The development known as ‘Animate’ will provide an eight-screen cinema, 16-lane bowling alley with gaming zone, five family restaurant units, a street food hub, public realm, a competitive socialising unit and 164-space undercroft car park.

After the success of the Wallace & Gromit (Wrong Trousers) Bench as part of the Harris Quarter Pop-Ups, project developers Maple Grove Developments, again commissioned Ian Banks as public art consultant to work on Animate. So from then until it’s February 2025 unveiling, Ian had helped coordinate between developers, Nick Park and animation company *Aardman and Castle Fine Arts Foundry to realise the installation of a four-foot-high bronze of (Wallace & Gromit arch nemesis) Feathers McGraw. Set within the Animate public realm, the criminal penguin-disguised-as-a-chicken surreptitiously overlooks the location of the installed Wallace & Gromit Bench. In a final act of vengeance he remote controls Wallace’s adorned ‘wrong trousers’. Feathers of course featured in the most recent W&G release of the film Vengeance Most Fowl that launched on BBC1 on Christmas Day 2024 and subsequently on Netflix and the unveiling was timed to follow that just after Animate opened its doors.

At ‘Feathers’ unveiling in Preston, Nick Park declared: “As a proud Prestonian, I couldn’t be more ‘egg-cited’ to see our infamous Feathers McGraw joining Wallace and Gromit in my hometown. I’m not sure how happy Wallace and Gromit will be, though, to have their arch nemesis clutching the limelight.”

As well as this, Ian has also been working with patterning artist Bonnie Craig on her laser cut Tenterhooks panelling installed onto the four Animate facades.

‘Animate’ opening prior to February 2025 hosts national leisure brands including Hollywood Bowl, ARC Cinemas, Zizzi, Cosmo, Las Iguanas and Loungers all signed up as tenants.

More detail on the Animate development can be seen here.