A Place For Words: Almost An Island?

What happened?

In October-December 2008, writers Sarah Butler and Aoife Mannix worked as writers-in-residence on the Greenwich Peninsula in East London, an area undergoing significant change and growth as part of the regeneration of the London Thames Gateway.

The project was a partnership between UrbanWords, Spread the Word and Art on the Greenwich Peninsula, and was funded by Awards for All.

Sarah and Aoife ran open and targeted workshops for local residents, and conducted a series of interviews. They used these experiences as inspiration for their own creative responses to the Greenwich Peninsula.

Sarah and Aoife created a ten minute sound piece which combines their own writing with the voices of the project participants. The soundscape was performed at Artists Making Places, a conference organised by Art on the Greenwich Peninsula in November 2008, and is available online. The writing created by Sarah, Aoife, and workshop participants is also archived online.

Almost an Island? linked up with other public art projects running concurrently as part of Art on the Greenwich Peninsula's programme. Workshop participants visited a hoardings piece by Bob and Roberta Smith and worked with a sign writer to create their own coded messages. Writing by Millennium Primary School was incorporated into a second hoardings piece by Faisal Abdu'Allah.

Project Gallery

Family Day

Sarah and Aoife held a creative drop-in family day. Participants visited a new public art piece by Bob and Roberta Smith and tried their hand at signwriting.

School workshop

A walk and workshop with year 3 students at Millennium Primary School

Hoardings poem

A poem written by Sarah Butler and year 3 students at Millennium Primary School was used by artist Faisal Abdu'Allah as part of an art piece on site hoardings

What made it work?

  • Strong partnership working with Art on the Greenwich Peninsula, who had an existing programme of work and local connections.
  • The project would have benefited from more time and resources, to enable the writers to build more lasting relationships with local people.

Further information and links:

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