Re: development: Voices, Cyanotypes and Writings from The Green Backyard
- Submitting institution
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University of Gloucestershire
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 22
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
- The Green Backyard in Peterborough
- Brief description of type
- Artwork, exhibitions, installations, writing and publication
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Re: development is a publication and outcome of a year-long residency project by Jessie Brennan in collaboration with The Green Backyard in Peterborough, hosted by local arts organisation Metal. The Green Backyard is a former derelict allotment site in Peterborough’s city centre that was transformed into a vibrant community garden by volunteers, yet for years it was under threat of redevelopment by its owner, the City Council. In 2014, based on her previous research, Brennan was invited by Metal and The Green Backyard to lead a project with its volunteers in order to share the voices of those communities defending their ‘right to the city’. Brennan’s methodologies involved producing over 100 cyanotypes (camera-less photographs) in a garden shed repurposed as a darkroom, and gathering personal testimonies from more than 100 self-selecting participants. Such methods produced qualitative evidence in the form of a visual and audio archive – over 100 cyanotypes and more than 100 oral recordings – for the existing social use and value of the land. The research questioned the capitalist logic of the proposed development by asking in what ways can participatory art and ethnographic methodologies, including cyanotypes and testimonies, support The Green Backyard’s communities in voicing their experiences and putting them towards productive political use? In ‘Re: development’ Brennan brings together the voices of The Green Backyard trustees, volunteers and visitors, in the form of transcribed oral recordings, a series of cyanotypes that document the space through its everyday objects, ten contextualising essays, and photographic documentation of two artworks installed in the public realm (What is necessary here?, 2014, billboard) and in the garden (If This Were to Be Lost, 2016–17, text installation). The work was exhibited in Peterborough City Museum at a time when the Council was deciding whether or not to sell the land.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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