The Art of Placemaking - How to Take the Community With You

Winning over the hearts and minds of the people in the community isn’t about how high you can push them; it’s about how low you can go to pull them up.

Jeff Clark, Founder and Creative Director

Revitalising our high streets and communities is a major focus for most local authorities, politicians and businesses. This is paramount, particularly here in the North of England, which has suffered particularly from a lack of investment and support. Luckily, this is being re-addressed through various schemes and programmes across most regions. The driving idea behind this activity is that without pride in place and engagement of local communities, prosperity and opportunity will not follow. Instead, Local Authorities, BIDs and businesses need to act together as a catalyst to revitalise our local high streets and neighbourhoods to signal hope and togetherness. All good on paper. However, very often these initiatives are short-lived ‘events’ which do make a small immediate impact, but fail to generate any real momentum and sustainability.

Art of Protest is dedicated to employing best practice in delivering grassroots engagement and participation in our approach to community and place building. For us, this means taking the time and effort to listen deeply to community voices and to translate these aspirations into tangible expressions of pride, identity and belonging. It is also about building the creative capability and capacity in local cultures to prolong and grow these aspirations under their own agencies. We don’t claim to have solved the whole problem about re-vitalising deprived town and city centres - but we have demonstrated how to deliver a high level of social and economic impact that makes a difference.

Return of the Oaks was a recent community-led project initiated by the City of York Council that aimed to revitalise a local area of the city through the UK SPF funding provided by central government. This finding has been a godsend for many towns and cities across England and Wales. As well as making vital changes to the newly commissioned mural and the refurbishment of street furniture in the heart of Acomb’s centre.

Art of Protest was commissioned to engage the community of Acomb to create a prominent mural and to refurbish street furniture, but this was more than animation and urban theatre; the project went much deeper than creating designs and applying paint. By exercising our unique ability to communicate through the medium of art, AOP set out to deliver a series of interventions through workshops, talks, and communications with all of the local schools, community centres, churches, and stakeholders across the Acomb area. 

Our team engaged the wider community by showing them how to create art and be a part of the process. We listened to their opinions and thoughts, supported their energy and activations, and demonstrated how they could contribute to shaping something much larger than themselves. Through this collective effort, a profound sense of place and voice emerged.

Part of AOP’s unique approach to placemaking is the Street Art Academy (SAA). This forms part of our Creative Learning and Alternative Education Provision, and it mainly targets young people in danger of exclusion or disconnection with their communities through being NEET (Not in Education or Training) or engaged in anti-social or criminal behaviour. It is an ongoing programme to tackle exclusion from education and work for many young people who have been failed by the mainstream education system and further disadvantaged by their social and economic backgrounds.

The Street Art Academy team delivered a course in spray painting in partnership with The PLACE, a community organisation based in the Chapelfields area of York - one of the most deprived areas socially and economically in England. We engaged with three age cohorts, and from the workshop activity, we identified four participants who were then selected to participate as part of the project’s talent development programme and with the Acomb Front Street mural itself. These participants were rapidly upskilled through a process that allowed them to paint alongside the leading artists on the mural and experience the impact of the project's purpose and process firsthand.

The talent development participants learned that public art is much more than a picture on a wall; it’s about a sense of identity, it’s about local history, and it’s about making a difference to where you live. 

Return of the Oaks acted as a point of engagement for the whole community as part of the consultation process by showcasing various mediums and art forms and establishing a sense of shared practices and processes. Ranging from participants aged 2 to 92, AOP delivered 17 workshops, collecting and collating information from over 300 people to develop creative briefs. These briefs were then distilled into designs and approved by community leaders and stakeholders before they were delivered. 

The final designs selected for the benches and street furniture for the wider project brought the concept of the native woodland back to life. Acomb historically was an area of oak woods which gave the settlement its name in Saxon times - Acomb. Positioned along the street, these "trees" became new meeting points, with people saying things like, "Let's meet at the beech tree," and were easily identifiable by the beautiful green palette of the benches with tree titles painted in a sharp, contrasting black. The centre piece street art mural was created with geometric patterns in an abstract style, as a homage to ancient Roman remains that York is famous for. Looming over the design was a further echo of the woodland through silhouetted details and which underscored the idea of the oaks ‘retuning’ to Acomb.

Tom Jackson and Chloe Mae were the practising artists who delivered the mural, and both live within a mile of the location. Their deep roots in the community fueled their passionate and energetic work and added a level of care that was exemplary. The overall public reaction to the project has been fantastic. AOP hosted a celebratory event, where city councillors, the Lord Mayor, and the community all came out to welcome the new mural and street furniture. Complete with speeches from the commissioners and AOP team, as well as another round of spray paint and stencil workshops, it was a wonderful way for the community to collectively admire the finished product of many weeks of hard work and planning.

Return of the Oaks is a small example of how public art can really act as a focal point to transform a community sense of themselves - not just because it has instantly uplifted the space and given a feeling of pride and civic community, but because it is an active and continuing part of a brighter future – something everyone can get on board with and come together as one. As Councillor Pete Kilbane commented: “Someday, one of these kids will walk past this mural and say I did that!”. What price should we put on that kind of hope and belonging?

Watch the video to experience the project. Join us in continuing to build vibrant and connected communities where public art can bring a sense of participation, hope and ownership to its people. If this vision resonates with you and your community, get in touch. We're here to help you deliver that ambition.

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