Place Studies

We are now conducting fieldwork in our place-study neighbourhoods, living and working alongside community-based organisations, residents and local decision makers. We are co-designing activities that can attend to a range of civic challenges and place typologies – and that will help us to collectively reflect on contemporary civic cultures. As the research progresses, we will document this work, including a gallery of creative artefacts produced with participants and artists.

A photograph of a public art intervention. The words We're not just Roman's are painted in white on a blue electricity box along with other words and images of creative industries in Chester, including Bakers, Fashion Experts, Cocktail Makers, Curators, Artists, Gemologists, Chefs, and Chocolatiers

Chester

An ancient city with multiple layers of visible and invisible heritage and long-established cultural traditions (such as the Chester Mystery Plays and Midsummer Watch), Chester also has complicated and historically marginalising administrative boundaries, including proximity to the dominant Liverpool City Region and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. With local place-making stakeholders including the local authority, small businesses, culture and heritage organisations, we will ask what conditions support meaningful and inclusive consultation strategies. We will co-design a large-scale community consultation event and develop shared definitions and vocabularies that support the city’s One City Plan.

We ran a pilot workshop in collaboration with the Cheshire Archives and Chester One City Plan as part of the Storyhouse Futures Festival in November 2025.

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An image of the front cover of the book 'Flatpack Democracy'. On a yellow background, the line drawing of a woman reading a book and heroically carrying a banner that reads 'Flatpack Democracy'.

Frome

With local organisations and initiatives including Edventure, Future Shed and Green and Healthy Frome, we are developing a people-centred, place-based evaluation of their community-led climate actions. Frome has a unique local political culture and over the past twenty years has contributed significantly to the development of new models of local governance and community engagement. Frome is our first place-study, and we will be based there from November 2025. We hope to learn about the kinds of imagining and agency that the town has nurtured and if they are transferable to other places and contexts. Our research will feed into Frome Town Council’s evaluation of the Green and Healthy Frome initiative.

We attended the Great Big Green Week in June 2025 and the Green and Healthy Frome Conference in November 2025. Michael and Ellen are based in Frome between November 2025 to March 2026.

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An image of the front cover of the novel 'Lanark' by Alasdair Gray. The image is an artwork featuring Glasgow buildings, surrounded by people, and a dark moody sky.

Glasgow

Travelling patches of sunlight went from ridge to ridge, making a hump of tenements gleam against the dark towers of the city chambers, silhouetting the cupolas of the Royal infirmary against the tomb-glittering spine of the Necropolis. ‘Glasgow is a magnificent city,’ said McAlpin. ‘Why do we hardly ever notice that?’ ‘Because nobody imagines living here,’ said Thaw. McAlpin lit a cigarette and said, ‘If you want to explain that I’ll certainly listen.’

‘Then think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he’s already visited them in paintings, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.’

Lanark, Alasdair Gray

Two PhD projects will look at different aspects of the Glasgow civic imaginary. The first begins in October 2025 and will study some of the ethical challenges of civic imagining for producers of Glasgow City images and narratives. The second, beginning in October 2026, will ask how the ‘civic’ and ‘civil’ are mobilised by national and local authorities and how they are shaped by devolution and newly emergent place-partnerships. Both will centre how place-based policymaking in Glasgow influences the civic imaginaries of citizens and the ways in which grassroots or citizen-led organisations interact with more ‘official’ state institutions.

We will update this section with more details when the projects are underway.

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A photograph of the public art intervention Sea of Hull by Spencer Tunick. Hundreds of naked people, painted different shades of blue lie on the floor of a main road in Hull City Centre. The painted bodies appear as a flow of water passing by the Guildhall. 

Hull

With local young people, we are exploring how democracy and collective decision making is understood in a community that has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country. The local political culture is discussed in this BBC Radio 4 documentary. Our work in Hull will take place through 2027 and will culminate in an exhibition and events with local leaders and community representatives at the Freedom Centre, co-produced with our partners, local youth organisations and young people.

We ran an animation workshop with My Pockets production company at the Freedom Centre Family Fun Day on July 30th, 2025.

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A photograph of a mural by My Dog Sighs and Background Bob in Southampton, UK. The mural is an image of a giant eye with the Southampton skyline and Background Bob reflected in the eye's pupil. 

Southampton

With the Testlands Wellbeing Hubs and Southampton City Council’s Community Engagement team, we are looking at what it means to be visibly civic in Southampton – especially in communities with historically low citizen-led action. Starting work in the Summer of 2026, we will co-develop a public exhibition at the Testlands Wellbeing Hubs that highlights hyper-local stories and experiences, through which we will reflect on different experiences of being a civic intermediary. 

We took part in BBAM festival in October 2025.

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