David Harding's Legacy of Poetry Paths and Public Art

Artist David Harding, who passed away recently, created significant public artworks integrating poetry into urban landscapes. As town artist in Glenrothes from 1968 to 1978, he embedded poems by Scottish poets including Douglas Young, Sydney Goodsir Smith, and Hugh MacDiarmid into paving slabs placed at bus stops and telephone kiosks. Harding's work expanded internationally with desire line paths featuring literary texts in Kassel for documenta 14 (2017), Athens, and Rome. These installations transformed informal community pathways into artistic interventions with poetic inscriptions. Harding's approach involved collaborating with poets and using municipal infrastructure budgets to bring literature into public spaces. His work continues to influence place-based art education and public art practices globally.