A Place For Words

New Blog location

2011-07-25T06:19:00.001-07:00

I have decided to archive this blog site and continue blogging on my newly redesigned UrbanWords website. Please join me there....

Poetry Hoardings up in South Kilburn

2011-06-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Three hoardings with writing by Aoife Mannix, Simon Porter, Niall O'Sullivan and local residents are now up on three building sites in South Kilburn. See southkilburnspeaks.wordpress.com for more information about the project.

Studio at the Elephant - launch event Friday 4th March

2011-03-01T13:39:00.000-08:00

On Friday March 4th 2011 Studio at the Elephant will launch. The project is a celebration of the Elephant's history and a community leading up to an intense programme of regeneration.

The functional multi purpose space acts as a studio/ workshop/ drop in area WELCOMING ALL. It will host artist's residencies, workshops, live events and discussions.

For more information or to get involved, please email Rebecca or Eva at studioattheelephant@gmail.com. In the meantime, please keep checking the blog for updates and news on the programme of activities.

http://www.studioattheelephant.blogspot.com/

Launch event Friday 4 March 2011, 6pm onwards

Winter Garden

2010-11-26T03:07:00.000-08:00

Over the winter months, I will be tending a Winter Garden of words on my Word Garden blog.

Inspired by the idea of a garden designed to be at its best during the winter months (whether outside or under an elaborate glass structure), I will use the Word Garden blog as a space to grow ideas for a new piece of writing, to be completed in Spring 2011.

To do this, I need your help. From December through to February I’ll be putting together a collection of words, images and ideas. Please visit the blog and answer the question: What would feature in your perfect Winter Garden? Winter Gardens that don’t have the protection of glass canopies are creative in their use of colour, texture, light and smell; so I’ll be focussing on those four elements. Leave a list, a poem, a description, or just a single word.

I’ll be blogging each week, sharing extracts and ideas as they grow towards a final piece, which might be a story, might be a poem, or might be something completely different….

Image: bortescristian

Voices in Print - New Commission from Stream

2010-09-30T05:30:00.000-07:00

Stream Arts have just announced a new commission for a print-based project as part of their Voices strand.
They are looking to commission a print-based project which adopts an innovative approach to the theme of ‘Voices’, focussing on the experiences of Peninsula residents and giving voice to the diversity of people living and working in the area. The project should draw upon the extensive material that was collected during the previous Voices projects, using this research as the basis of the project, and making use of the new Voices website, which has interactive and social media elements, to generate discussion and communication (http://peninsulaprojects.net/voices)

More info here: http://streamarts.org.uk/blog/186

Thoughts on writing and the city....

2010-09-07T01:05:00.000-07:00

Check out David Ogunmuyiwa's fabulous guest blog for the South Bank Centre's Global Poetry System...

From Manchester Rain to Antarctic Dreams

2010-08-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

I'm guest curator for the Southbank Centre's gorgeous Global Poetry System this week. Visit the site to see my journey through the found poems on a global poetry map.

Throughout August, the four members of the Found Materials network, of which I'm part, will be selecting 8 featured poems from the site.

Writing and Regeneration - Free resource

2010-07-27T09:05:00.001-07:00

A free resource pack introducing writers and literature organisations to the complex and exciting field of regeneration is available to download from the literaturetraining website. An UrbanWords commission from literaturetraining and the National Association of Literature Development.

(Re)generating change: writing the public realm

2010-07-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

A fantastic new article by Rosa Ainley, commissioned by UrbanWords, is now up on the A Place For Words website.
Rosa reflects on Leysdown: Rose-tinted, a Visioning project for Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey, in collaboration with muf architecture/art and local people, which has been nominated for numerous awards and has had a tangible impact on the regeneration of the town.

Ballooning, Balancing, Balconies and Birds - texts installed

2010-07-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

I've just installed four texts in Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, prior to the story walks I'll be leading there on Tuesday 27th July.

Please visit the Cremorne Gardens sections of the Word Garden blog and answer the four related questions - answers will be incorporated into the walk. You can also read the texts and download your own copies if you'd like...

Unforgettable Lessons

2010-07-13T02:57:00.000-07:00

The Erith Marshes project I've been running with year 8 students at Trinity School, Bexley, is featured in CABE's Unforgettable Lessons exhibition at The Discover Centre in the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The exhibition showcases each of the 12 Engaging Places best practice projects and is well worth a visit. It's on until the end of August.

The exhibition was launched yesterday. Jody and Jacob from Trinity School came along to talk about their experiences of the prjoect and show off the fantastic guide to the marshes they made with designer Esther Yarnold from Interim.

The Bexley project continues.... we are currently collecting oral histories from local people to inspire a series of new text pieces to be installed in the marshes. Watch this space!

Story-Swap Workshop

2010-06-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

Story-Swap Workshop, 6-8pm, Thursday 1 July
Beaconsfield, 22 Newport St , London SE11 6AY

One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure; one person’s annoying relative is the heroine of another’s novel. Come take part in a relaxed two-hour creative writing workshop led by Sarah Butler, which translates the concept of free-cycling onto the creative process.

Come with a donation – a character, an idea, a memory, an overheard conversation, a family secret: something you’re prepared to offer up to other people’s imagination. We will do a series of writing exercises, exploring participants’ offerings and finding ways to transform them into new gems of writing.

This free creative-writing workshop is part of SpaceShip Earth, 2010, a residency by artist Dafna Talmor at the Beaconsfield Gallery, 22 June – 18 July 2010. Over four weeks, Dafna Talmor will utilise Beaconsfield as centre for recycling, production and community workshops – a training ground for a better world elsewhere. The documentation of this activity will form the basis of Talmor’s TestBed film commission. Spending as little money as possible, the project will be fuelled by collaboration and audience participation -–borrowing, swapping, recycling where possible. Based around the idea of exchange, various practitioners provide free workshops to the general public, volunteering their time and skills in exchange for offerings-material or in the form of alternative services provided by participants.

PLEASE NOTE ALL WORKSHOPS WILL BE FILMED

Places are limited so please book by e-mailing your full name and mobile number to TestBedBeaconsfield@googlemail.com including the workshop title in the subject heading.

Balloons, spies, asparagus and other Wandsworth Stories

2010-06-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have been loving wandsworthstories.org. It's a quirky and accessible heritage project, sharing snippets of history from across the borough. And they send you a postcard if you ask nicely! Mine just arrived this morning.....

Engaging Places

2010-05-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

I am working as writer-in-residence in Lower Belvedere, in the London Borough of Bexley. It is a fascinating area, once a broad stretch of marshland, close to the Pleasure Gardens at Erith, it is now home to Crossness Sewage Works, a huge new rubbish incinerator, an industrial estate, and a tiny patch of precious marshland, some of which is designated a protected Nature Reserve.

I've been working with Year 8 students at Trinity School to explore the marshland's history and ecology. Sessions have included work with the Local Studies Department, and the council planning department. The students have responded creatively to the area, creating myths, historical fictions, and proposing a new name for one of the many drainage dykes in the area.

The project is part of CABE's Engaging Places Scheme. You can read some of the students' responses to the project so far on the Engaging Places Website.

Yesterday, I was at an evaluation day for all of the Engaging Places projects taking place across England this year. I was struck by the diversity of the projects, and the wealth of ideas about how to engage young people in learning about the built environment. Listening to the presentations I was brought back to the thought I regularly have, that learning about the built environment should really be part of the curriculum. I think it is so important to enable our society to articulate and understand their relationship with place, not least so they can have the opportunity to participate in improving towns, cities and places across the UK.

Image Copyright Alys Tomlinson

WANTED: Poet to collaborate with Architects

2010-04-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

Really exciting opportunity....

CODA Architects in Bristol are seeking expressions of interest from poets who wish to explore the dialogue between poetry and architecture.

CODA aim to gain a poetic viewpoint on architecture, the sites they build on, the type of projects they work on or even the materials they use to help generate alternative responses to these issues when designing.

A fee of £1000 is available for the poet engaging in this project.

If you feel that this is a project that you could contribute to please submit an expression of interest, comprising your CV and an indication of how you see the project might work (five hundred words maximum) to Ronnie Rennoldson:
email r.rennoldson@coda-architects.co.uk by 3 May 2010.

For more about CODA Architects and their work visit: www.coda-architects.co.uk

River Sounding

2010-04-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across Bill Fontana’s River Sounding installation at Somerset House yesterday. Sounds collected from above and below the surface of the Thames have been installed in the underground spaces of Somerset House (not usually open to the public). Some spaces also have images from the Thames projected onto walls/piles of broken stones. It is a fantastic – and (excuse the pun) immersive – experience, this mix of subterranean urban with an incredible watery soundtrack. If you’re in London, go! It’s on until 31st May, and there are a whole load of linked talks and events too. More info here: http://soundandmusic.org/activities/events/bill-fontana-river-sounding

Art and Regeneration, Why Do It?

2010-04-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

There's a write up of a panel event, Art and Regeneration, Why Do It?, which was hosted by the Architecture Centre Network in February on ACN's website. The panel consisted of myself, Sam Wilkinson from Insite Arts and Anna Strongman from Argent.

2010-04-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Public Art Micro Documentary - Grasp The Words Which Sing from Ben Sherriff on Vimeo.

This 'micro-documentary' looks at Michael Fairfax's text and public art work in Exeter. It doesn't really deal with the text at all, rather addresses the politics/controversy/issues surrounding public art pieces. Some nice images though. I'd heard about the Heavitree project, but not seen images before. It's been hugely controversial, but I like it!

If you're interested to see more of Michael Fairfax's work, check out his website: www.michaelfairfax.co.uk

Writers and Public Art - a new web resource

2010-04-01T03:58:00.000-07:00

Myself and poet Linda France were recently commissioned by NAWE to produce a web based resource offering writers an introduction to the field of Public Art. The resource, which includes an introduction on how to find work, approach partners, contacts to see what else is being done in this area and a comprehensive bibliography, is now online.

Anne Caldwell, Programme Manager for NAWE says: "The collection of images from Linda France helps bring this work to life, and can be used to begin to develop your own approaches to collaborations. The images could spark ideas about a range of visual arts materials, your own use of text and styles etc, or be used to share with potential partners as a way of sparking ideas. Linda France encourages you to create your own image bank of material to inspire projects in the future, as every writer will have their individual style and taste in this developing area of work."

Taking a Break

2010-02-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

I'll be taking a break until early April, but will be on the look out for interesting things to blog about when I return....

The Tragedy of Suburbia

2010-02-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

I listened to a TED talk this week: The Tragedy of Suburbia by James Howard Kunstler. It has a bit too much American invective for my taste, but it's definitely worth a listen. A passionate challenge to modern planning and a demand for better quality places ...

Artists and Regeneration

2010-02-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

I'm talking at 'Artists and Regeneration', an event organised by The Architecture Network at The Building Exploratory in Dalston tomorrow night. It features myself, Anna Strongman from Argent and Sam Wilkinson from Insite Arts. Tickets have sold out, but they're going to put a podcast online so I'll post once that's up. Should be an interesting conversation....

Linear

2010-02-07T07:29:00.000-08:00

I went to the launch of Dryden Goodwin's stunning project, Linear, for Art on the Underground on Friday. He's drawn portraits of 60 members of staff on the Jubilee line, and recorded both the process of drawing and the conversations that took place. The results are 60 short films that give an incredible insight into the people that took part. There's also something really magical about watching their faces emerge from a blank piece of paper as you hear them speak. Funny, moving, gorgeous. Check it out.

Negotiate Your Place

2010-02-03T01:35:00.000-08:00

A great conversation at the Know Your Place event at the German Gym in King’s Cross last night. I could have carried on for at least another hour!

Some ideas and themes that stuck with me:

1. The negotiation of power within residencies – how can and should a writer approach a residency? As an anarchist, a negotiator? Nick Mahoka made a good point that he thought organisations who asked for a residency were to some extent asking a question, inviting a line of inquiry. Lemn Sissay talked about the need for commissioners to take a creative approach.

2. The balance between structure and freedom, and the role of the organisation in supporting and enabling the writer to really work magic.

3. The need to accept that you can’t know what will happen in a residency, balanced with the need to draw boundaries (especially to do with resources), and then to measure and advocate for the work done.

4. Kat Joyce talked about her One Mile Away residency and how all of the stories and conversations amassed into something bigger than its constituent parts, and also the satisfaction she found in watching new connections being made within a neighbourhood as a result of her work.

5. Lee Mallet commented that within the field of regeneration there is a real need for work like this to deepen our (and specifically planners/architects/developers’) understanding of place.

6. Tamsin Dillon from Art on the Underground talked about their growing interest not just in the physicality of the Underground but also in ‘the people who animate those contexts’.

And so much more!

My Place Or Yours - another case study

2010-01-28T01:36:00.000-08:00

The last case study before our event, Know Your Place, is now online. Apples and Snakes discuss My Place Or Yours, a series of 5 writing residencies exploring pioneering ways of presenting work on-line and live, engaging with audiences through a series of residencies on the theme of “Place”.
Emma McGordon chose to be a poet in residence in homeless shelters in Cumbria and Liverpool. Take a look at the case study to find out more....

One Mile Away

2010-01-21T01:22:00.000-08:00

In the lead up to the Know Your Place event, a second case study is now online.
One Mile Away was a 3 month residency exploring the mile radius around Spread the Word's offices in Lambeth. Writer Kat Joyce, and theatre director Nathan Curry, brought together a disparate collection of narratives, collected through participatory workshops, into a promenade play, which started in an empty shopping unit in Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre and took audiences on a mile long walk, culminating in West Square, SE11.

New case study online, and get your questions in early....

2010-01-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

In the lead up to Know Your Place – a panel debate organised by UrbanWords and Spread the Word to explore the role of value of place-specific writing residencies – we are collecting together a series of short case studies to whet your appetite and spark questions to put to our panellists prior to the event.

The first of these case studies is now online. Central line stories took place in 2009: a residency by Sarah Butler working with London Underground staff, commissioned by Art on the Underground.

Having read about Sarah's project we'd like to know what questions or issues you think it raises which could be a focus for the debate. What more would you like to know about this project? Are there others which you think are comparable? Please email Emma Hewett with your questions/responses at emma@spreadtheword.org.uk by Monday 25th January.

And don’t forget to book your place! Full details and booking here.

Free article on A Place For Words

2010-01-04T04:26:00.000-08:00

Check out a new free article by Linda France on A Place For Words. Writing in Three Dimensions explores the difference between writing for the page, and writing for a place. Linda France is a poet with a huge amount of experience writing for public art commissions.

Speak to Strangers

2009-12-21T03:30:00.000-08:00

I've just come across Gemma Seltzer's brilliant 'Speak to Strangers' blog, a hundred hundred word stories about London, with a lovely interactive map to explore where the stories happened. Enjoy!

Know Your Place - 2nd February 2010

2009-12-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

UrbanWords has teamed up with Spread the Word to present Know Your Place a panel discussion exploring the value of writing residencies.

Writers in residence can now be found in many places: at airports, bus stations, in shops and even on the Tube. But what impact do these residencies really have on the people, places and organisations involved, and how do they, in turn, shape the writing that's created? What are the objectives of those who employ writers this way, and what impact do these have on the writers themselves? What role do writers have - and what role could they have - in regeneration and place-making? The panellists include:

Charles Beckett - Literature Officer for Arts Council England, London
Sarah Butler - Director of Urban Words, and writer of 'Central Line Stories'
Tamsin Dillon - Head of Art on the Underground
Emma Hewett - Director of Spread the Word
Kat Joyce - writer of Spread the Word's Neighbourhood Commission, 'One Mile Away'
Lemn Sissay whose residency at the Southbank Centre created GPS (the Global Poetry System)

This event will take place in the evocative space of the German Gymnasium, a Grade II listed building at King's Cross , now redeveloped as the visitor centre for the King's Cross Central Development, one of the largest urban regeneration projects in Europe.

Staff at the German Gymnasium are happy to provide a free, short introductory talk on the King's Cross development to attendees. Please arrive at the venue at 5.30pm if you would like this.

Tuesday 2 February
6pm - 8pm
German Gymnasium
26 Pancras Road, Kings Cross, London, N1C 4TB
Train/Tube: Kings' Cross
£ 8/ £ 6 (concessions)
Booking: 0207 735 3111 or online

Subtlemob 16th December

2009-11-27T09:32:00.001-08:00

Subtlemob is happening again, 6.30pm in London on 16th December, in Birmingham on the 18th and Bristol on the 19th. Definitely worth checking out: http://www.subtlemob.com/

Imaginative Engagement

2009-11-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

I gave a talk and ran a workshop for architecture and creative writing students at the University of East London this week. We had some really interesting conversations about how writing can help us to understand and unpick place, and how writers and architects might work fruitfully together.
Helena Blakemore, who runs the creative writing course there, brought my attention to a really interesting project at Sheffield University, which has explored how creative writing can work to re-engage people with place, in this case the River Dearne in South Yorkshire. Worth a look: http://www.shef.ac.uk/landscape/staff/profiles/paulselman/research.html

Poetry, Rain and Tokenism

2009-11-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

I've been back from the internetless world of Hawthornden Castle almost two weeks now. It's been a bit of a whirlwind! Here are a couple of interesting things I've done/come across since I've got back:

A mass poetry writing project by Alan Summers, creating a 1000 verse renga, a really interesting Japanese form of communal poetry writing. You can find out more and get involved at: http://area17.blogspot.com/

Last week, I took part in Duncan Speakman’s Subtlemob in Covent Garden (a lovely take on the idea of flashmobbing). Participants loaded one of 2 sound files before the event, positioned themselves in a specified area of Covent Garden with a partner and then listened and followed instructions. It was pouring with rain. My partner was suffering from a cold and I felt bad dragging her through dark wet streets! I liked it though. Liked rather than loved. People were asked to do things (put a hand on their partner’s shoulder, look in a window etc.) and the story was orchestrated so that people were doing actions that were being described to you through your headphones. Some of it worked – I loved it when people were looking up at the tops of buildings, and when we were asked to dance. But there was an uncomfortableness there too. I felt we were asked to hold positions for maybe too long – though I can see it was needed for the thing to work. I was struck by the pacing and how music/soundtracks can influence our experience of a place. I found some of the content bordering on cheesiness, but I loved how it made you stop and look at the city in a way you hardly ever do.

On Monday I went to 'Architecture in an Age of Anxiety', a talk by John Sorrell (about to step down as chair of CABE) at the Tate Modern. He was talking about the state of architecture and the threats posed to high quality places by the recession. He issued a ‘clarion call’ to architects, to stand up and be counted, to turn down compromised jobs, to fight for high quality projects. Unrealistic, maybe, but it was interesting to listen to thoughts about how architecture needs to change and how the recession offers opportunities for reassessment and questioning. He talked about ‘informing and inspiring’ people so they can make informed and inspired decisions about their environment. I asked him to talk more about this – how do we enable people to talk with understanding and passion about the places they live in, how do we empower people to get involved? His answer was not inspiring to me! He talked about working with local people as clients, taking them to inspiring places, educating them about architecture. Fine, but he said ‘we need to find a group of people who represent the whole of the community’ – is that possible? I’m not pretending I have an answer, but I’m not convinced that this addresses the issue that lots of people don’t feel informed, inspired or motivated to fight for better places; finding a group of 5 people with the time to get involved, even if that group is truly diverse, isn’t going to solve this wider issue.

Off to the hills....

2009-10-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Hawthornden Castle for a 4 week writing retreat. A world without internet and probably without phone reception.... so no blogging, no emailing, no distractions, just me and my novel - I can't wait! I'm back on 9th November.

Check out Global Poetry System, the brain child of Lemn Sissay, writer-in-residence at the South Bank Centre, co-ordinated by the fabulous Participation Manager, Lucy McNab. The site, which encourages people to photograph and upload the poetry they find in their environment - engraved in marble, scratched onto trees, written on toilet walls in permanent marker - was launched yesterday, on National Poetry Day. There are some real gems - have an explore and add your own discoveries.

Barking Arboretum

2009-10-02T03:03:00.001-07:00

I went to the opening of Barking Arboretum on Wednesday. Having spent so long looking at plans and thinking about the potential of this space, it was great to see it finally open and being used. I love the way muf have made the space so magical: the railings turn into trees, seats are hidden away in corners, there's a stage just asking to be performed on.

There was also an exhibition of the work the RCA students did as part of Barking Metamorphosis. It was great to see how their work has developed since I last saw it. Some pieces have been made into permanent chairs and flooring in the arboretum. Will brought along a table-tennis table made from the Olympic blue fence, which was immediately put into use by passers-by.

My only disappointment was that there were no library staff or residents at the opening. I really hope people make this space their own - and I think there's real scope for the library to spill out into the arboretum...

Books as physical locations

2009-09-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading Art and Architecture: A Place Between, by Jane Rendell, who’s a really interesting professor, based at the Barlett (Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL). She comes from an architecture/public art/ art writing background, and is interested in writing’s relationship to art, place and architecture.

One of the many art pieces Rendell discusses is Roni Horn’s ‘Another Water’. The final piece is a book of images of the surface of water, interspersed with technical accounts of deaths on the Thames, and footnotes which are descriptions in the 1st person by Horn. The project was part of a series of commissions for the River Thames. Talking about it, Rendell says:
“Like the Internet, books are public sites accessible to diverse audiences, but not usually regarded as ‘physical’ locations. However, it is important to recognise that these kinds of sites have specific formal limits and material qualities, for example the size and layout of words on a page, and that ‘surfing the net’ as well as reading a book. Horn’s work points towards how different texts, from the empirical account constructed through careful and systematic research to the more poetic reverie, can, by drawing attention to the spatial ways in which we read images and words, main texts and footnotes, produce critical spaces through the act of reading, asking us to question the relation of fact to fiction in the writing of a cultural history of a place.”
I haven’t quite processed this yet, but I’m really interested in the connection between text and space, and the idea of reading as a spatial activity.

Midweek

2009-09-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

You can listen again (or download the podcast) of my Radio 4 debut on Midweek this morning: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mr5n8.
And don't forget all those lovely stories (also downloadable as mp3s) at www.tfl.gov.uk/art

Canal Club

2009-09-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

I spent three days last week on the Canal Club, on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal (towards the Liverpool end) as part of Urbanism 09. I was commissioned by PublicWorks to write a new fiction for the canal – a magical story which pulled out the potential of a place which is frequently dismissed as a 'wasteland'. My story is called 'Fishing For Stars' (inspired by the star shaped lanterns attached to the 'Club'). It follows three characters, Caib, Rhaw and Bywell (their names are drawn from a mural of ancient tools painted on one of the canal's walls) who all discover their own routes into a magical parallel universe, where their wishes for the canal come true. Here’s the beginning few paragraphs:

“Let me tell you how I found this place. I was fishing for stars. You can see them, if you look, just below the surface of the canal, like silver, sharp-edged fish. Mum says they’re the souls of the people who built the canal. Dad says they’re the dreams of children whose bedrooms overlook the water. Whatever they are, they are as heavy as stone. I was fishing for stars and I caught one. It pulled me right in – headfirst, surprised. I like fishing. I’ll step onto a door one of the boys has stolen from a skip, and push my way to the middle of the canal. But I’m not a swimmer. I hate going underwater I didn’t choke or splutter or drown though, and the water was crystal clear and rubbish-free. I’m telling you, you can breathe as easy as air down here, and if you open your mouth the world tastes sugar-sweet. It took me a while to work out the upside-down thing, because the water makes everything shimmer and shift when you move, like there are a million crushed diamonds floating in front of your eyes. You have to stand absolutely still before things become clear, before you realise that you can walk on the sky, dip your toes into cool white clouds.”

The Canal Club was only in existence for three days, over the lifespan of Urbanism 09, which presented a number of challenges, including finding ways to get visitors to engage with my story. Our plan was to ask visitors to write letters to the fictional characters, but whilst some people did this, it was difficult to get them to commit to reading the story 'on site'. We put vinyl-cut extracts from the story onto the Canal Club itself, hung copies up by the seating areas, and gave away photocopies. It's a short story, only 4 sides of A4, but that's quite a lot to read if you're just 'dropping in'. I think giving the copies away was the best tactic, but then it's very difficult to know if anyone read it, what they thought about it, and whether it influenced their thinking about the canal.

If the project had been longer, I would have liked to involve more people in the story's creation, to have sent copies to people before the 'live' bit of the project, and posted it online, and organised more 'formal' (by which I mean people commit to come for a specific length of time) workshops where I could have read the story and then worked with people to write responses to the characters. Equally, it would have been good to have a blog (or fairy post box!) where people could post responses to the story after the event.

Canal Club

2009-09-16T22:57:00.000-07:00

I will be at Urbanism 09 Thursday-Saturday this week, organised by the Liverpool Biennial. It looks like it will be an extravaganza of art interventions and urban conversations. I’ve been commissioned by PublicWorks to create an imagined fiction for a stretch of canal in Bootle, Liverpool. I will be ‘resident’ on the Canal Club, a temporary floating structure on the canal, and will be inviting visitors to write letters to the characters in my fiction as a way of imaginatively exploring the future of the canal.

Central line Stories

2009-09-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Central line Stories, the result of my recent writing residency on the Central line, is being launched tomorrow. Posters are up across the Tube network at the moment, and 15,000 booklets (a collection of name stories written in collaboration with Central line staff) are being given away to passengers. There’s also lots of writing (and audio) available to download from www.tfl.gov.uk/art, including two new short stories, inspired by conversations with Central line train drivers. A big thanks to Art on the Underground for the commission, it's been a fantastic project to be involved with.

Literature Development and Regeneration: An Introductory Training Day

2009-09-08T06:36:00.000-07:00

I am running an introductory training day in London on Thursday 24th September. It's been commissioned by NALD, and is aimed at literature professionals who are thinking about setting up a literature project in a regeneration context.

The day will introduce you to the world and language of regeneration, and show how writers and literature organisations can develop projects that engage with regeneration and urban change.

I'll be joined by guest speakers: Anita Nadkarni, a trained architect, and experienced arts and regeneration professional, and Kate Cheyne from Architects in Residence.

As well as presentations and group discussions, there will be the chance for you to think about how your own work could fit into regeneration contexts and agendas.

Course attendees will be supported by online activity in the 6 month period after the workshop, allowing you to continue to access expertise, advice and support while you are developing your ideas.

10.00-16.00 Thursday 24th September

Venue: The Poetry School, Lambeth Walk, London

£30 NALD Members £60 Non members To book a place mail admin@nald.org

The Dreaming City

2009-08-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

I have just read a really inspiring book called The Dreaming City: Glasgow 2020 and the Power of Mass Imagination. It's free to download from Demos's site and I would really recommend it.

The book documents the project, Glasgow 2020, which the authors describe as a mass imagination experiment. It used storytelling and story creation as a way to co-create a new story of the future of Glasgow: “The stories that we tell matter because they indicate how we see the world, and whether we believe we have the power and capacity to shape it for the better. Stories are one of the main ways that we make sense of the world, and understand and interpret our lives and experiences. Stories and engaging people’s imagination are potentially a powerful way to open up the futures of cities in democratic and creative ways.”

Writers Shaping Places

2009-07-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

There is a review of the Writers Shaping Places event that took place last month at Shortwave, on the RUDI (Resource for Urban Design) website.

Here are some of the comments from event attendees:

‘The event was really thought provoking and created a number of new ideas for using writing and digital media to enhance our regeneration projects. Places, particularly changing places, need to communicate to people and vice versa. Writers can make this happen.’
Chris Brown, Chief Executive, Igloo Regeneration

‘Writers Shaping Places is interesting because it reminds you that places are shaped by people, how they use it, their memories and stories. Writers can help reveal this, and help make people aware of their neighbourhood, what is special about it and why they care for it. This is very important in a process of change.’
Dann Jessen, Architect, East

‘Writers Shaping Places showed me clearly what UrbanWords exists to do: to create a dialogue between those who engage imaginatively with place, and those who engage with it practically. Of course, architects and writers do both, but in very different ways. I left feeling excited to find out how each person in the room ‘imagines the unimaginable’ and even more excited about how this might translate into the shape of our city.’
Miriam Nash, poet

Poetry, Optimism and Delight

2009-07-21T01:25:00.000-07:00

I am currently doing an online course hosted by the Homes and Communities Academy, which aims to give people a greater understanding of the sustainable communities agenda. I can't help but feel a bit cynical about the idea of sustainable communities - it's a great idea, but I worry about the achievability of maintaining a growing economy and increased standard of living for all without impacting on the environment or adversely affecting future generations' abilities to improve their quality of life...

Anyway, as part of the course I came across this article by Miriam Fitzpatrick, a member of CABE's Urban Panel, on CABE's website. She begins by quoting from Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and argues that "sustainability must address our needs as human beings before obsessing over the measurable". I enjoyed her use of the engineer Randall Thomas' definition of sustainability as "poetry, optimism and delight. CO2, water and waste are secondary." She argues that "it is only after raising our spirits as humans that design for sustainability should go on to tackle quantifiable issues such as CO2 emissions."

A strong argument for the arts, I'd say, though the rest of this article does talk more about physical and design issues than raising human sprits, I notice...

Article in Mslexia

2009-07-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have an article about writing and public art in the Summer edition of Mslexia, in which I interview 3 writers: Linda France, Donna Daley-Clarke and Denna Jones who have all worked on public art commissions in very different ways.
Hope you enjoy it.

Writers Shaping Places

2009-07-02T03:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Chris Meade, Kate Cheyne, Spread the Word, and all the audience members for taking part in the Writers Shaping Places event on Tuesday. Lots of thought-provoking ideas and discussions came up, which we're looking forward to continuing talking about on www.shapingplace.ning.com....
Miriam Nash, from UrbanWords has posted a review of the event on the site - so please do sign up and have a look: http://shapingplace.ning.com/profiles/blogs/writers-shaping-places-a

Social Networking Site for those interested in writing and regeneration

2009-06-30T03:40:00.000-07:00

Chris Meade will be presenting his paper A Place That Makes You Go 'Ahhhhh' at Shortwave, Bermondsey, London, this evening, and will then be in conversation with Sarah Butler from UrbanWords and Kate Cheyne from Architects in Residence.

We have set up a social networking site so that those at the event, and those who were unable to make it, can continue the conversation about writing and regeneration online. The site is open to anyone who wants to join, at: www.shapingplace.ning.com. It's easy to get to grips with, but to help you along, we've written some notes on getting started below:

What is Shaping Place?

Shaping Place is an online space for writers, urban designers, architects and planners interested in creativity and place, hosted by UrbanWords using the social networking tool Ning.com. Its aims are:

1. To provide a contained online space for interested people to discuss issues, share best practice, and test out ideas about how writers and urban design professionals can work together.
2. To create a space for writers and urban design professionals to profile their work and interests.
3. To enable people to get in touch with each other to take forward individual projects and conversations.

Sign Up in 5 easy steps

1. Go to www.shapingplace.ning.com

2. Click ‘Sign Up’ on the right hand side of the page.

3. Enter your email address, password, date of birth (you can choose whether to display this publicly), and the security code shown.

4. Enter your profile name and basic details. Upload a profile picture if you like.

5. You now have access to the entire Shaping Place network and can add blog posts, events, forum discussions and comments. Use the tabs at the top of the page to explore the site. We encourage you to add text, images, weblinks, etc. to your profile page to enable other Shaping Place members to find out more about you and your work.

FAQs

Q. How private is ShapingPlace.ning.com?

A. Non-members can only see the main page. However, anyone can sign up to be a member, so you may wish to avoid giving out personal contact details – see below for information about how to contact other members through the site. We want the site to be as open and easy to use as possible, so currently we are allowing people to sign up without moderation. We will monitor this, and change it if necessary. You can choose your own privacy settings by clicking ‘Settings’ underneath your profile box, displayed on the right hand side of the main page.

Q. Will I receive email notifications from Shaping Place.ning.com?

A. Only if you choose to. You can choose what kind of notifications to receive by clicking ‘settings’ (as above) and then ‘email’.

Q. How do I send someone a message?

A. To send another member a private message, you need to add them as your friend. This is why creating a profile is useful as it allows members to contact each other directly. Of course it’s up to you if you want to add your personal contact details or just be contacted through Ning.com.
Alternatively you can leave a public comment on any member’s wall.

If you have any questions, please contact Miriam.nash@googlemail.com

A Place That Makes You Go Ahhhh....

2009-06-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

Prior to the discussion event, Writers Shaping Places, on Tuesday 30th June, UrbanWords has commissioned a new article by writer Chris Meade, drawing on his experiences of working with designers and public artists, Snug and Outdoor. It's an engaging read, which offers concrete examples of how writers can facilitate creative consultation and make a valuable contribution to the design process. The article - "The place that makes you go ahhh.." is free to download from the Articles and Critical Thinking section of the A Place For Words site.

Chris will be talking about the issues and examples he raises in his article at Writers Shaping Places, on Tuesday 30th June, 6.30-8.00pm at Shortwave, Bermondsey Square, London, and will then be in conversation with Kate Cheyne from Architects in Residence, and Sarah Butler from UrbanWords. There are a handful of (free) tickets left. Please call Spread the Word on 0207 735 3111 to book a place, if you haven't already.

We are setting up an online networking site to enable people to continue the conversation after the event, and to bring in people who cannot make the event, but are interested in the issues raised in Chris's paper, and in broader ideas about writing and regeneration. The site will be launched on 30th June and I will post up details of how to sign up on that date.

A Place For Creativity? RUDI Conference thoughts

2009-06-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday at a conference in Manchester called A Place For Creativity?, organised by RUDI (The Resource For Urban Design Information) and PlacesMatter (an organisation focused on generating a strong sense of place in environments throughout the Northwest).
It was a good day – lots of interesting presentations, and a couple of arguments! I wanted to blog about2 things that came out of it that I think relate particularly to writing/literature.

1. Throughout the conference architects, urban planners and artists kept talking about finding the story of a place, discovering the narrative, getting under the skin of a place. ‘Every town’s got a story if someone takes the trouble to find it’, one speaker said. Sans Façon are a really interesting collaborative arts practice (2 guys – 1 an English artist, the other a French architect). They talked about how they ‘read from’ place – which I thought was an interesting phrase. It strikes me that this is what the poets on Apples and Snakes' My Place or Yours project are doing – getting under the skin of the places they are connected to. It also strikes me that this kind of understanding of place is like gold dust for those developing masterplans, strategic frameworks etc. for regeneration projects.

2. Paul Kelly is a name I’ve come across before connected to a fantastic project in Liverpool in the 90s called Further Up In The Air (a series of artist residencies in a tower block destined to be demolished – which included a residency by Will Self – I’d encourage you to find out more, on Neville's site, and A Place For Words ). Anyway, he’s now a project manager for Heartlands and is working with Liverpool Biennial on a public art commission on the canal in Bootle, Merseyside. He talked about the incredible low aspirations of residents and the council in Bootle, how he is consistently told: “you can’t do anything here, it’s Bootle”. Which brings me to another hobby-horse topic of mine. I think that story can be really powerful in this context – that sometimes places (and organisations, and individuals) get stuck in a cycle where they keep telling themselves the same story (Bootle’s rubbish, nothing exciting can happen here, for instance). For me, regeneration is about telling a new story, about opening up the idea of change, and through describing this new narrative for a place, creating the space for that change to happen in.

And finally, this gorgeous project by Sans Façon. As part of Glasgow’s Festival of Light in 2005 they created this piece with 2 theatre spotlights attached to a streetlight, and then camped out in a building with a view of the street to see what happened: everyone who entered the ‘limelight’ performed. I just think it’s beautiful!

UrbanWords at Leeds Festival of Design Activism

2009-06-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

I will be talking about UrbanWords at the Leeds Festival of Design Activism Practitioners Conference on Friday 4th July. It's a Power Point free conference, which is a refreshing thought. Visit the website to find out more and book a place.

My Place or Yours

2009-06-09T02:06:00.000-07:00

I am guest blogging for a couple of weeks at My Place or Yours, a project which has placed 5 performance poets in 5 places (including an allotment!) across the UK. The site is well worth an exploration. The poets and their mentors are using blogging as a way of 'laying bare' their process and keeping in touch with each other and a wider writing community over the life of the project.

What do you do with 250 fictional booklets about chairs?

2009-06-03T03:39:00.000-07:00

You plant them in Ikea... Click here to see the photos...

Which I think is genius (credit goes to Yemisi Blake!)

For more info on the Barking Metamorphosis project, visit the project blog.

Blank pages?

2009-05-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm editing an article at the moment about writing and the public realm. This quote from writer/consultant/lead artist, Denna Jones, is one that I keep coming back to. Denna spent some of her childhood in the desert of Southern California; she says: ‘I’m very aware of the language used to erroneously describe the desert – bleak, empty, etc. – and I notice similar pejorative language used about areas designated for regeneration too. But, in reality, the desert is a hugely rich and complex place. I get very concerned about projects which assume places with problems are just blank pages.’

Online writing - Public Art?

2009-05-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

I am taking part in In Digitalisation, a course run by Spread the Word looking at digital possibilities for writers. Last night Naomi Alderman talked to us about her online, and offline writing, which I found really inspiring. One thing that struck me, as she was talking about issues pertinent to online writing, was the number of similarities with the concerns of public art: people won’t read the work in a linear way; the visuals are really important – you need to find a designer/artist who can do visual justice to your words; the reader is immediate and present in a way that’s perhaps less evident with the written page. Perhaps online writing can be seen as another kind of public art, in a world where lots of us lead lives that constantly cross and recross the boundaries of online of offline, and new ‘virtual spaces’ are constantly being created.

Writers Shaping Places: Free discussion event - 30th June

2009-04-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

UrbanWords has teamed up with Spread the Word, the writer Chris Meade, and Architects in Residence to host a free discussion event on Tuesday 30th June at Shortwave, the fantastic new community cinema, bar and production facility within the Bermondsey Square regeneration scheme.

How do writers work with architects, designers and planners to explore and interpret people’s relationship with and aspirations for a particular place?

Join writer Chris Meade, UrbanWords Director Sarah Butler and architect Kate Cheyne, at Shortwave, a new cinema, cafe bar and production facility within the Bermondsey Square regeneration scheme, for an evening of ideas, discussion and the opportunity to network.

This event will also launch a new web piece by Chris Meade, sharing his experiences working with artists/designers Snug and Outdoor, and the conversation will be continued online after the event.

This is an opportunity for writers who teach or run community projects to explore new ways of working and for regeneration professionals to see how writers can add value to their work.

Date: Tuesday 30^th June
Venue: Shortwave, 10 Bermondsey Square, London, SE1 3UN (http://www.shortwavefilms.co.uk)
Time: 6.30 – 8.00pm (followed by the opportunity to network)

For further information contact: sarah@urbanwords.org.uk. Places are free but limited, please call Spread the Word on 0207 735 3111 or visit www.spreadtheword.org.uk from 8th May to book

This event is supported by Arts Council England, Spread the Word, Architects in Residence and Shortwave

Location for creative text

2009-04-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

This is an image from Lulu Quinn's work, which both makes me laugh, and I think asks an important question about what text in the environment does, or can do.

Permanent or Temporary?

2009-03-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent the last few weeks developing proposals for an arts programme to complement a regeneration scheme (hence the blog silence!). It was an intense and very interesting piece of work which threw up some key issues for me about public art and the idea of permanence.
The area I was working in is a mix of marshland/nature reserve and industrial estate. The funding for an extensive scheme of infrastructure and public realm improvements comes from central government and from Europe, and is, very specifically, for capital spend; in other words, for ‘stuff’.
Yet working in this area, walking, talking, reading, and walking some more, it became evident that a lot of the reasons why the natural resources are underused are psychological and emotional as well as physical. In addition, thinking about physical art work in this context is difficult. The area’s ‘charm’ is in its emptiness, it view, its industrial nature; some of the area’s problems are to do with having too much clutter – too many signs, bollards, fences etc. Would putting ‘pieces’ of art there not just mean adding more clutter to a cluttered landscape?
For me, a programme of temporary interventions, temporary signage projects, and text pieces that would generate interest and intrigue, but would eventually disappear, make sense in this context. For me, creating a role for art to engage local residents and employees in rethinking their area, and developing new relationships with a place on their doorstep, through participatory projects that build relationships and lasting partnerships, has a stronger resonance and potential than a series of permanent art commissions.
And yet the funding that exists is for ‘things’, and so the only option if you insist on taking the ‘participatory, temporary approach’ is to look elsewhere for additional funds. The other tension here is whether you end up arguing ‘against art’; whether you end up saying it is better not to spend this funding on permanent pieces of art because it isn’t the right place for them. In doing so are you failing to fight the ‘art’ fight? Or are you trying to be genuine in your response to a specific place? Linda France said something interesting to me the other week: artists need to be humble, she said, and advised writers with public art commissions to “ask yourself would a tree be better here?” But isn’t that complicated when the artist has been commissioned by someone whose funding and agenda insists that there should be something there, even if a tree might be a preferable option?

City of Stories

2009-02-07T04:27:00.000-08:00

I am working for the British Council in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on a project called City of Stories. I will be back in the UK in early March, doubtless with tales to tell about writing, cities, orangutans and Laksa...

Poetry on Hoardings on Greenwich Peninsula

2009-02-03T10:13:00.000-08:00

A poem created by myself and year 3 students at Millennium Primary School as part of Almost an Island? has been used as part of a commission by artist Faisal Abdu'Allah - the piece is called In The Same Place and consists of a temporary lightbox attached to the hoardings on John Harrison Way, opposite Greenwich Millennium Village.

Spatial Writing?

2009-01-30T03:06:00.000-08:00

Speaking to Donna Daley-Clarke recently about the residency she did at Cabot Circus shopping centre in Bristol last year, I was struck by a comment she made: about her interest in the processes of construction, and that had she had more time for the residency she would have liked to explore whether she could find her writing process in these construction processes. I am really interested in this – in whether writing in the context of regeneration requires us to think differently about the way we write, and the form we write in. Can there be a spatial writing? Jane Rendell at the Bartlett is doing interesting work in this area, with her project Site-Writing. At a recent lecture she asked “can writing be architecture, rather than just talk about architecture?” There is something here, that I can’t quite get to grips with, something about writing creating rather than just reflecting space and place…

Glocal Imaginaries

2009-01-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

I recently put together a conference abstract for Glocal Imaginaries, a really interesting looking conference which marks the end of the research project Moving Manchester. I’ve been continuing the thinking I started when I wrote a paper for Playing in Urban Spaces at Leeds Metropolitan University in October 2008 (available to download from A Place For Words). Through discussing the idea of writing as an active process that can engender change, I keep returning to the question of how this model – of a powerful writer – intersects with democratic ideas of place and aspirations towards conversation and participation. I keep tying myself up with questions about readers and writers and texts. I think a lot of the work I’m interested in is about how people’s relationship with place can change positively when they engage with it creatively through writing. So where does that leave the text? And who is the reader?

Conversation, collaboration - a network?

2009-01-19T06:43:00.001-08:00

I interviewed the poet Linda France about her work with poetry and public art last week. Discussing teaching a module on text and public art at Newcastle University, she talked about how she found the module a valuable forum for discussion and creative debate. She said: “There is no canon, no critique for this work – we are creating it ourselves, and so we have to keep talking. This is a collaborative process which will only move on and grow through conversation.”
Her thoughts echoed my own about the need for collaboration and conversation to realise the potential of working in this field. I am currently thinking about the best way to create a network of interested people from across different disciplines, which can facilitate debate as well as partnerships that will result in specific projects.
I am thinking about programming a ‘trial’ programme of networking events in London, which will be mirrored and supported with some kind of online life/networking/forum opportunity. Any thoughts or suggestions would be gratefully received.

More thoughts on consultation

2008-12-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

I attended the launch of Say&Play yesterday, a toolkit for improving local government consultation, based on a series of recent events held in Lambeth. On the one hand it was great to hear politicians and local goverment officers talking about the need to do positive, creative consultation with residents. I found the thinking about how consultation needs to move away from 'research', from extracting information from people, towards creating a transaction, where those who are consulted get something out of the process, whether that's social networks, useful information, entertainment etc. really interesteing and useful.
On the other hand I found the event frustrating. That might be because of the lack of opportunities for discourse and conversation (a bit ironically!) which I suspect were due to keeping the launch short and sweet. But it was also born from my feeling that surely local government can't have only just woken up to the fact that we should talk to people, find out what their lives are like and what could make them better. If that is the case, I find it both remarkable and depressing.
My final frustration was with the exercises we did as a way of demonstrating how this kind of consultation can work. One of these involved being given 3 blue stickers and choosing 3 out of 6 statements as being the most significant issues faced by local authorities conducting consultations. You put your stickers on the 3 most important issues. And that was that. I buy the argument that this can work as an activity that doesn't feel too difficult or time intensive, or laborious, and therefore it's accessible to people who might otherwise not engage with consultation activities. However, 2 of the choices were: 'complex subject matter' and 'tickbox culture'. To me they are the same thing: the desire for easy clear answers and the fact that such answers are perhaps impossible and maybe misleading. There was no space for me to voice this. There was no subtlety or complexity in the exercise. Maybe I'm being naive. Maybe it's about having a range of activities that range from the do it in a couple of seconds straight forward answer, to something more complex, and through that variety we put together the bigger picture. But I wonder if we are dumbing down, if we are assuming that people who don't usually take part in consultation can or will only do activities that are non-complex.
I hate to feel like a cynic, and I appreciate that we need to be exploring different ways of doing things. Perhaps the issue was that we didn't get to explore the complexities at the launch event which left me with this frustration, I'm not sure...
Anway, you can find more info on Say and Play on the Involve website, here.

Ameliorating Amelia Street

2008-12-05T09:21:00.001-08:00

I recently worked with another artist, Kamala Katbamna, to explore the area around the Pullens Estate in South East London with a group of young people from Gascoigne Primary School. The local TRA are working with the Architecture Foundation to recruit architects to improve the public realm in the area, and we wanted to add the voice of young people to the mix of information given to those applying for the tender. You can read the writing created here, and find out more about the competition, and listen to Kamala's sound piece by visiting the Amelia Street website.

Creative Writing and Consultation

2008-12-02T07:37:00.001-08:00

Thank you to the 20 people who came to the creative writing and consultation event hosted by Create KX at the School of Life on Wednesday 19^th November. I found the workshop really interesting, especially the mix of people, ideas and approaches within that one room.

I wanted to post up some of my notes from the session as a way of reflecting and sharing the thoughts generated over the 2 hours.

Where does it end?

A conversation that really struck me was around the question ‘where does consultation finish?’ Are we stymied by the idea that consultation is something done to a group of people and then finished with? Instead, should we be looking at consultation as an ongoing process, something which is done with rather than done to? I wonder if our project-driven arts funding and our society’s need to ‘finish’ things (ok, that’s a grand statement, but I think there’s some truth in it) makes it problematic to argue for the ongoing. Maybe because we’re not sure how to measure its successes? I’m not sure.

What can writers offer?

We talked about writers working as translators, finding ways of crossing the communication gap between those involved in regeneration. We also talked about them as interpreters.

People were struck with the idea of writers creating more abstract responses which can then be interpreted by other professions (architects, designers etc.)

There seemed to be a feeling that the brief exercise led by Aoife Mannix achieved two main things. Firstly it was accessible, relaxed, enabled people to have their say. Secondly it to some extent worked as a warm up, diffusing mindsets, opening up thoughts, which could then lead to quite remarkable and personal responses to the question ‘what does home mean to you?’ that might not have been accessed if the question had been asked cold. I found this really interesting, that we might use creative processes to open a path to finding more accurate and intimate responses to important questions.

Here’s one of the communal pieces of writing we created with Aoife:

Candyfloss

Earl Grey, because I’m worth it

The smell of your skin on an autumn evening

Would you like to come for dinner?

Birdsong and Gravel

Home-full and home-less. So blessed and so confused by having two homes separated by sea. Home is love, but loves are split too. Home is somewhere between my father’s and my husband’s arms.

A bit of politics:

Someone raised the interesting issue of how creative writing might take a role in critiquing and challenging the bureaucracy and politics of regeneration. How might that work? And how might that be funded? We circled that question too – how does who’s paying affect what we do? Might we end up doling out propaganda rather than opening up genuine debate?

We touched too on the ethics of what happens afterwards, who takes responsibility for the listening that is needed if consultation is to work.

What’s important?

~ Doing with not doing to

~ Not going into the process with an idea of what the answer should be

What’s needed?

~ Really robust case studies that can be used to convince (maybe reluctant) organisations to engage with this method of working

~ Effective communication - people won't work in this wayif they don't know about it

I’m interested in this idea of case studies, perhaps in trying to get a project off the ground that sets out to consult in this way and explore and document the possibilities. And then the communication of that knowledge and experience comes second, giving people the confidence and skills to find their own ways of engaging with creative writing and consultation.

Professional Development and Support

2008-12-01T06:14:00.000-08:00

UrbanWords is looking to develop a programme of professional development and support in the field of writing and regeneration. In order to plan an appropriate and useful programme, we are asking a broad range of professionals interested in this area about their training and support needs and ideas.

Please click here to take survey by Monday 22^nd December, and please pass the link on to any contacts who might be interested.

What kind of writing?

2008-11-25T05:34:00.000-08:00

I had a really interesting meeting with a writer called Denna Jones a couple of weeks ago. She’s a writer who does work that relates to place, from ‘public art’ residencies to involvement in masterplanning processes. We talked a lot about the importance of the narrative of a place, about how writers can explore and ‘give back’ the lost narratives of a place to the people who inhabit it, engendering pride, conversation, and change.

One thing we also discussed was the focus I have taken so far on the idea of ‘creative writing’. It’s not a term I’m particularly comfortable with, and am becoming less so. As Denna said, all good writing should be creative. I increasingly think that the thing I am interested is story and narrative, and that doesn’t necessarily need to be restricted to the defined spaces of ‘poetry’, ‘prose’, ‘script’ etc. Perhaps what I am interested in is a new kind of writing, that exists outside of the boundaries of literature that I have grown up with and interacted with so far?

The power of language

2008-11-21T02:35:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post this emailed comment from a writer called Naomi Alsop who I met at The Writer’s Toolkit – a conference organised by Birmingham Book Festival in October this year:

“Reading your blog from today about Obama’s victory and the role of fiction in preparing people for the idea of a black president, I thought about an article I read when researching my undergraduate degree in sociology, (Metaphors we discriminate by: Naturalized themes in Austrian newspaper articles about asylum seekers by Elizabeth El Refaie). El Refaie argues that the various metaphors used to describe asylum seekers in the press (flood, influx, army, horde etc) have become so naturalized that people don’t realize they’re metaphors and that can result in people accepting behavior against asylum seekers which they wouldn’t otherwise. So if you’ve internalized metaphors of asylum seekers as an invading army it’s acceptable to use the army to intercept and detain them (as in Italy, eg), if criminality metaphors are used it’s natural to detain them, if they’re a natural disaster we need to improve our defenses against them. That article was one of the points at which I decided I wanted to use stories to challenge the dominant discourses which divide people and instead work towards using language to foster understanding.”

(Naomi will have a website soon: www.naomialsop.com - and can currently be contacted at info@naomialsop.com)

Her email reminded me of something Inua Ellams said at the TINAG roundtable discussion in October, about the power of words to change perceptions, and how the role of writers working in a community regeneration context could be to explore and positively impact on the meanings and power of the language used to describe a place.

Jargon Buster

2008-11-18T10:03:00.001-08:00

I just found this (http://www.regenerationexchange.org/jargon.php) on the Regeneration Exchange website - great if you're feeling confused by regeneration jargon.

Arts Professional Article

2008-11-17T08:06:00.000-08:00

Arts Professional have published a short article about writing and regeneration as an online 'addition' to their current issue, which focuses on arts and regeneration. It's got a terrible title, but do take a look. You can get to it from the Arts Professional
website homepage. Go to 'web exclusives' and then to (ahem...) 'Words of Wisdom'.

Barking Metamorphosis

2008-11-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

UrbanWords is involved with a really exciting project in Barking, East London, working with the Barking Learning Centre, writer Yemisi Blake, the art/architecture practice muf, product design students from the Royal College of Arts, and young people living in Barking.
There are chairs, tables, trees and stories, and much more to come. I am very excited about it! We've set up a project blog at www.barkingmetamorphosis.wordpress.com which will be developing over the next few weeks.

No Hiding Place

2008-11-14T06:13:00.000-08:00

Myself and Aoife Mannix performed part of the soundscape we’ve created during our residency on the Greenwich Peninsula at the conference, Artists Making Places, on Monday 10^th November, organised by Art on the Greenwich Peninsula.

It was a fascinating conference, with an emphasis on the power of art and artists to effect real change in places and communities. Declan McGonagle chaired the conference, and was commissioned to write a paper as a provocation for the conference. It’s called ‘No Hiding Place’ and is a fantastic and inspiring piece, which argues for art to be seen “not as a decorative antidote to reality but as one means of comprehending and transforming that reality”. I’d recommend it (and it’s quite short!). You can download it from here: http://www.artongreenwichpeninsula.com/debateEducation.php

Alfredo Jaar gave the conference keynote, and was again inspiring about the role of the artist as a catalyst for change. He talked about how artists can create new models of thinking and new ways of communicating, emphasising that communication only works when an answer is invited and given. His approach is about dialogue and collaboration, rather than trying to convey ‘a message’.

One thing Jaar said which really stuck with me was: “an active community is a community that creates.” I agree with him, and in the importance of arts and creativity in the fabric of our lives.

Can stories change the world?

2008-11-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot recently about how stories can effect positive change. I remember working in a job where employees were stuck in negative storytelling patterns. It was like we were all trapped in the same story : 'it's rubbish, no-one ever listens to us, what's the point? etc. etc.' I attended a storytelling conference at around the same time and started to wonder whether workshops with staff to encrouage them to start to tell different stories might somehow help the organisation break out of this negative cycle. I didn't follow my idea through, but the connection between stories and positive change has been following me around ever since. My logic is, if we can tell a different story, then that can open up a space for a different narrative to happen. The story itself won't change things, but it can create the space and the possibility for change to happen.
I've been thinking about this again in the run up to the US election. When commentators questioned whether the US would ever elect a black president, I couldn't help thinking, well, the story has already been told; we have all read novels and watched films where there is a black US president. That space has been opened up by fiction, and perhaps now is the point reality can step in.
I'm not suggesting that the films casting black actors as the US president are responsible for Obama's victory, but I do wonder if they played a role, if the world came to this election having already seen a black man in the white house, and decided to step into the space made by those stories.

What do writers do?

2008-10-29T12:04:00.001-07:00

Writers tell stories. They find form for complex ideas. They show us the world anew. They explore the connections that exist, between people, places, events, and time. Writers search for what is not said, the currents that exist underneath what is made explicit. Writers create work that is a pleasure to read.

2008-10-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

Roundtable Discussion at the TINAG festival

2008-10-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

25 people came to a roundtable discussion asking 'is there a role for creative writers and creative writing in the process of regeneration' at Cafe Oto, in Dalston, last Friday, as part of TINAG's three day festival exploring 'the city'.

I found the discussion fascinating. We had 6 panellists, who gave a broad range of responses to the question. It was a beginning of a conversation really, and we could only just scratch the surface in the hour and a half, but there is talk of setting up further discussions and possibly a network of those interested in this area of work.

I am in the process of writing up the session for TINAG's festival publication and will post more details as I progress.

Something that struck me on Friday was a conversation a woman who attended the event. She works with young people in Newham, and her initial response to the discussion was 'but we're interested in activism, not words.' I tried to explain that I am also interested in real change and in real empowerment for people who are experiencing regeneration, and that I see the potential for writing to have a powerful effect on urban change. As our conversation progressed, she started to say that maybe she saw that writing might be one way in to engage with people and articulate their views and aspirations, with the intention of engendering change. I am hoping that conversation will continue.

Hard hats and steel toe-capped boots

2008-10-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

This week sees the culmination of a fantastic project, BS1. Artist Neville Gabie was apppointed as artist-in-residence on the Cabot Circus site (commissioned by InSite Arts, the residency was funded by Bristol Alliance).
In addition to his own work, Neville wanted to create the opportunity for other artists to respond to the creation of this new retail centre and successful got arts council funding to do so.

I worked with Neville to appoint the novelist Donna Daley-Clarke to work on the BS1 project. It was fantastic to be in the position to find an interesting writer, and offer them the time, access and impetus to respond creatively to a vast and remarkable site.

Donna wrote three stories as a result of her residency: Dirt, Stone and Glass. They have been published in a small publication, currently available at the BS1 exhibition in Bristol (24-30 Oct).

Talking about her residency, Donna said:

"I saw processes and machinery that I had no knowledge of and weeks or months later I had a series of light bulb moments as I realized what I had seen then. I saw lots of absences: no floors or walls or ceilings. There were wires beneath my feet and brightly coloured cables running up poles.

I met many people formally in meeting rooms and informally as Neville grabbed men in high-vis jackets walking past the open door of Costa Coffee. I talked to people on their lunch breaks. I climbed ladders in the rain to get people's stories.

None of the stories I eventually emerged with belong to any one person I spoke to, but none of the stories would have been possible without the input of the many people who gave up their time and shared something of their journeys."

In addition to the publication, Donna wrote some texts which are bring projected onto the exhibition window, along with another artist's video portraits of site workers.

A free workshop looking at creative writing and community consultation

2008-10-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

UrbanWords has teamed up with Create KX to deliver a workshop exploring how creative writers can contribute to the process of consultation. The session is free, but you need to book. Details below:

What Do You Think?

A community/ an organisation/ a place can be seen as a tapestry of stories, each thread essential and compelling.

The space to write down, savour and enjoy these words enables communication and sparks passion.

We all know the pen is mightier than the sword, but can creative writing ensure successful consultation? Can writers provide a vital role aiding regeneration?

Join us for a stimulating workshop on using literature and creative writing as part of the consultation process for change and urban renewal.

The workshop will delivered by UrbanWords (www.urbanwords.org.uk) and poet, Aoife Mannix (www.aoifemannix.com).

3.30-5.30pm, Wednesday 19^th November

The School of Life, 70 Marchmont Street, London WC1N 1AB

Free, but booking essential. Email info@createkx.org.uk to book your place.

BS1 Project - exhibition in Bristol 24th - 30th October

2008-10-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

A week long exhibition at 94-96 Horsefair, Bristol, marks the culmination of BS1, a series of temporary art commissions responding to the creation of Cabot Circus, a new retail centre for the city.
UrbanWords worked with the artist Neville Gabie, and Insite Arts, to commission Donna Daley-Clarke to respond to the site. She has written 3 stories, Dirt, Stone and Glass, which will be available at the exhibition and soon up on the project website.
There's an opening evening on Thursday 23rd October, 5.00-9.00pm, and the exhibition's open 24th-30th, 11.00am - 5.00pm. Click here to go to a flyer for the event.

Playing In Urban Places - transcript up on site

2008-10-13T05:17:00.000-07:00

You can now download a transcript of the paper I gave at Playing in Urban Places at Leeds Metropolitan University on 3rd October from A Place For Words.

Just to blow my own trumpet for a moment, some unsolicited emails after the event:
"I wanted to say how much we enjoyed your presentation, it was brilliant, interesting and inspiring"
"I really enjoyed your talk "

I'd be interested to hear what anybody thinks about it...

Playing in Urban Places

2008-10-08T03:34:00.000-07:00

I spoke at Playing in Urban Places: a seminar, organised by Leeds Metropolitan University Gallery and Theatre last week. I will be posting a downloadable transcript of my paper on the A Place For Words site shortly - I'll post a note to tell you when it's up.

It was a really interesting day. Lots of interesting ideas and questions, plus we got to make dens, and play with lego!

Quentin Stevens, from the Bartlett, gave a key note about playing in urban places, which resonated with a lot of the things I've been thinking about recently.
Play is crucial, I think, in exploring and developing our relationship with place. It seems to me that play - seen as 'normal' for children, and 'transgressive' for adults - is key to achieving a sense of ownership and agency over a place. Quentin Stevens talked about areas where play takes place: paths, intersections, boundaries, thresholds and where there are props. This made me think about the work Snug and Outdoor have done around play and narrative, using concepts from narrative analysis (about paths, thresholds, obstacles, destinations, sanctuaries, arenas) and relating those to the design of play-spaces. Can we make a jump from this to the wider field of urban design and start to design in the possibilities for new narratives?

Other people's thoughts

2008-09-22T03:01:00.000-07:00

Some nice quotes I found on Public Art South West's fabulous website:

Art isn't necessary anymore as a field, a profession; art is no longer a noun, it [has] become a verb. Art is nothing but a general attitude of thickening the plot.

Vito Acconci

Art is language and public art is public speech.

Jonathan Jones, The Guardian

Public art is... 'a form of street life, a means to articulate the implicit values of a city when its users occupy the place of determining what the city is'.

Malcolm Miles

Michel de Certeau

2008-09-08T03:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve been re-reading a couple of chapters (Walking in the City, and Spatial Stories) from Michel de Certeau’s collection of essays, The Practice of Everyday Life. It makes my head hurt, and I’m not sure I understand a lot of it, but there’s some really interesting stuff there about our relationship to cities and to stories.

He talks about the power and importance of stories and legends in creating place:

“It is through the opportunity they offer to store up rich silences and wordless stories, or rather through their capacity to create cellars and garrets everywhere, that local legends (legenda: what is to be read, but also what can be read) permit exits, ways of going out and coming back in, and thus habitable spaces.”

He talks of stories and legends as haunting places, and argues that “Haunted places are the only ones people can live in”.

Playing in Urban Places

2008-09-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

I am speaking at a conference in Leeds on 3rd October. My paper is called Narrating the City. It asks whether there is a role and a space for literature and creative writing to inform and explore our relationship to urban space. The paper connects the concept of narrative to that of navigation. It considers who authors a city, compares the role of the resident/visitor/walker in a city to that of the reader, and looks in very practical terms at how such ideas can be applied through participatory literature work.

Currently it looks like this:

... but I'm getting there! Will be posting my ideas as they develop.

Information about the seminar below:

a seminar:
Playing in Urban Places.
3 October 9am – 5pm
Followed by an evening reception.

This seminar seeks to investigate the creative ways that a city is uncovered and discovered, while generating a platform for discussion and debate around the experience of interacting with location. Using the work of Alex Hartley as a contextual springboard the day will become a stimulating event to explore creative and innovative engagement with the urban.

This is a seminar for artists, architects, curators, educators, students, and those working in related fields of geography, urban planning, literacy, and so forth.

The day will showcase an international selection of researchers and artists through paper presentations, interactive installation, sound, video and performances, on the following themes:

o Innovative engagements between art and architecture

o Navigating places, paths and barriers

o Subversive and transgressive acts to take back the city

Our panel of speakers include:
Chair: Professor Guy Julier - Architecture, Landscape & Design, Leeds Metropolitan University

Keynote Speaker:

Playing with the Potential of Public Spaces

Dr Quentin Stevens – Senior Lecturer Urban Design, The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

Speakers:

Sarah Butler - UrbanWords
Dr John Crossley – Leeds University
Matt Delbridge – University of London
Marianna & Daniel O’Reilly
Laura Robinson & Dr Liz Stirling – Leeds Metropolitan University
Victoria Stanton
Varsity of Maneuvers - Birgit Binder & Jorda Planellas
John Wild RCA

To book please call the box office on 0113 812 5998, all forms of payment accepted, or call in person to the Gallery & Theatre Office between 9am and 5pm, Monday-Friday.

£75/£45 concessions [lunch and evening reception included]

gallerytheatre@leedsmet.ac.uk

www.leedsmet.ac.uk/arts

Poetry/Prose

2008-09-03T02:25:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the difference between poets and prose writers working in a 'public' way. A public artist I spoke to a year or so ago said he always works with poets because it's easier. They write in such a condensed way you can fit it onto a physical sculpture much more easily. Fair enough, maybe, if we're talking about physical public art. I could make endless arguments about why prose writers can work as effectively, but as a prose writer myself, I feel slightly on the back foot and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just that, because it's such a condensed and transportable form, poetry has been the more used literary form in this area of work.

I have just started a lovely project on the Greenwich Peninsula with the fantastic poet, Aoife Mannix. We're blogging about the process and sharing our writing as we go along (visit the blog here if you want to have a look). Again, I feel a bit of a pang that I'm not a poet. I want to be able to write something people can take in in one gulp (though I appreciate it will take them longer than that to digest it). I guess I need to accept the difference between the forms, and find ways to tell and present stories in a way that makes sense to me and how I work.

I'm working with the artist Neville Gabie at the moment on a project in Bristol called BS1. We've appointed the novelist Donna Daley-Clarke to respond to the building of a new shopping centre in central Bristol. I was really keen to appoint a prose writer to explore exactly this issue - how can prose writers work in this field? I'll be thinking more about that as the BS1 project draws to an end later this autumn.

UrbanWords at TINAG festival

2008-08-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

UrbanWords will be hosting a roundtable discussion, exploring the role creative writers can play in the process of regeneration and urban change, as part of This Is Not A Gateway's festival exploring multidisciplinary approaches to the city. Visit the This is Not a Gateway site to find out more.

Who's to say why there's a tank by the side of the road?

2008-08-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk through South East London yesterday and came across this tank on the corner of Mandela Road and Page's Walk (I think!)
A man who works locally stopped and said he'd been driving past it for years but had never stopped to look at it before. We ended up talking about how we both wanted to know more. Why wasn't there a blue plaque? he said. Why wasn't there an explanation?
I've been thinking about this since and I can't decide whether I respond positively to this need for stories, for explanations, for narratives about unexplained things, or whether I find it a bit depressing that our immediate response is to look elsewhere for an explanation - that we want someone else to author our city and our experiences for us, rather than delighting in the opportunity to make up our own stories.
Maybe I'll write a spoof blue plaque...

How to define writer and text

2008-08-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

I am reposting part of a comment made by Ruth Ben-Tovim at Encounters, a really interesting looking organisation based in Sheffield, because I think it's worth considering in more detail and would be really interested in other people's ideas. She says:

"Really interested to read about this site and think it's important to champion the role text and writing could have within regeneration and public realm work. I'd like to see the definition of 'writer and 'text' be widened though. At the moment in the examples you give it seems as if the emphasis is on the idea of writer as a primary creator, someone who shapes others' words or works with people to listen/ absorb but then creates a new authored work. I think that there is of course a place for this work but I think there is also a huge scope to use and work with Verbatum text. For the last 5/6 years I've been delivering temporary public art work/performance work collecting memories and stories linked to specific places within a neighbourhood, journeys people have made to live where they live, and answers to broad questions that explore what it is to be human. We've used these 'collections' to create print, exhibition and performance work and in those processes see myself as a Dramaturg/ curator or even organiser of this text, a very creative role but not the 'author'. We're now looking at projects where text from collections such as these could work within permanent public artwork."

I think this is a really interesting point. I guess from a personal point of view I am interested in the idea of collaboration, so a writer working alongside (and on an equal footing) with a group of people who wouldn't define themselves as 'writers', to create new, challenging work. Perhaps this fits in with the idea of Dramaturg/curator/organiser - but then do you need a writer to do this, or not? Am I too keen to pigeon hole people, I wonder?! I suppose I've spent a lot of time trying to think about what it is that makes writers interesting/relevant people to work with in this context, and trying to think through how writers can keep their identities and use their skills as writers in a community/participatory context. I'm not pretending to have any answers!

I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this....

2 articles to look out for

2008-07-28T02:22:00.001-07:00

Look out for articles in NAWE's latest journal (issue number 45) and the regeneration journal New Start Mag (Volume 10, no 442) which go into some of the thinking on the A Place For Words site in more detail. The articles are also available to download from A Place For Words

Starting a Conversation

2008-07-16T02:29:00.001-07:00

A Place for Words is meant as an invitation to join in a conversation. I find this area of work fascinating and full of potential and want to explore existing case studies and possibilities for future work further.
Do you agree with the ideas proposed on the site? Are there things you’d like to add, or argue with? Have you been involved in projects you would like to see featured on the site?
Please get in touch either by responding to posts on the blog or by emailing me at sarah@urbanwords.org.uk

Welcome

2008-06-04T04:27:00.000-07:00

The A Place For Words site has just this minute gone live!

I'm writing a bit of a holding post, as I'm about to embark on an epic cycling trip from John O'Groats to Land's End and won't be back at a computer until early July.

Until then, please explore the site and feel free to email me at sarah@urbanwords.org.uk with any comments.