Welcome to West Oxford
To help mitigate disruption and provide clarity during the lengthy construction process, Live Illustration’s Chris Shipton was commissioned to create a series of modular artworks and visual timelines along the pedestrian walkways, detailing both the engineering journey and the cultural history of West Oxford.
Installation
Installed in November 2025 the modular work lined the pedestrian walkway linking the centre of Oxford to West Oxford. It was an opportunity to tell the story of the project, and West Oxford itself. We worked with John E Wright to install weatherproof AO Vinyl prints. The walkway is now gone, and the bridge opened.
Welcome to West Oxford
This project was an excellent chance to remind the many people travelling through the works that West Oxford was a unique place with many hidden gems and important historical figures.
For Chris himself it was a moment to re-engage with a place he’d already spent a lot of time in, including once having had a studio there.
The Project
Network Rail and it’s stakeholders had to endure a considerable amount of bad press and low public opinion as the projects delays ran into years.
Amongst the bad publicity the story of a quite unique and remarkable £30m infrastructure project of incredible complexity was lost. The reality is it’s construction in a tiny footprint while keeping a national rail network going was a remarkable feat - even if it took longer than expected.
We created a narrative sequence that was placed a long the walkway West to East to help people learn why it was all happening.
