Rethinking the Brownfields
- Submitting institution
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Staffordshire University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- Lists 49
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Public Realm, Stoke-on-Trent; Spode Factory, Stoke-on-Trent; SYSON Gallery, Nottingham; Tatton Park, Knutsford; Vivid, Birmingham; Arnolfini, Bristol; Blackall Studios, London.
- Brief description of type
- A collection of creative work and public engagement activity on a related topic that address different aspects of a single project and are collectively greater than the sum of their parts.
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2018
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- 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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2
- Research group(s)
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A - The C3 Centre: Creative Industries and Creative Communities
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Rethinking the Brownfield is an ongoing project that explores the outcomes of using public arts practice to reframe ex-industrial brownfield sites within the public consciousness. It has focused on Stoke-on-Trent, which has exposed several brownfield sites following a late twenty-first-century industrial downturn. These sites have generated community fears, being seen as dilapidated and dangerous. The research has shown that public arts practice can inspire people to reconsider these spaces as resilient eco-systems with significant ecological value.
Initial research stemmed from a research residency in Nara, Japan, which was focused on the flower-arranging technique Ikebana (2012). Francis explored how inviting Stoke-on-Trent residents and professional artists to take part in ‘Brownfield Ikebana’ (2012, 2015, 2018) in three city centre brownfield sites (the greyhound track, the abattoir, and the ABC Cinema) provoked dialogue on the spaces’ ecological importance. Francis has extended these engagement activities to include workshops, walks, and community meals. She has also investigated the effects of artist-focused research residencies, and responsive interventions on changing public perception. She has taken both public- and artist-engagement activities to other major cities including London and Birmingham. In collaboration with the AirSpace Gallery, Francis has used her findings to develop the Spode Rose Garden, a community garden located at the shuttered Spode ceramics factory. The Rose Garden has engaged community members in creating, maintaining, and celebrating an urban space that is specifically intended for people and natural life to cohabit. Francis has disseminated her methodologies and findings through addresses and workshops delivered at academic and practitioner conferences throughout the UK and Europe. She has also disseminated her work through public group exhibitions throughout the UK, including Treeline, (Vivid, Birmingham (2018)), Cryopreservation (SYSON, Nottingham (2015)), Small Worlds (New Art Gallery Walsall, (2015)), and BCB (Stoke-on-Trent (2015)).
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -