A Place For Words: Barking - A Model Town Centre
What happened?
UrbanWords and muf Architecture/Art commissioned poet and novelist Aoife Mannix to run a series of workshops with residents of Barking, East London, exploring imagined occupations of the new developments currently being built in the borough. People aged 10-90 talked, wrote, and explored memories and aspirations of home, health, markets and retail. Aoife Mannix and Sarah Butler brought together words written and spoken by the participants to create texts to accompany architects' models in the Design for London commissioned exhibition, Barking: A Model Town Centre.
Throughout the exhibition, Aoife Mannix worked with visitors to explore and capture their memories of and hopes for Barking.
Project Gallery
Text accompanying an architect’s model in the exhibition.
Text created by Aoife Mannix through workshops with Barking residents.
Hoardings in front of the new town square development.
What made it work?
- A flexible and creative approach. The group of older people were reluctant to write, but Aoife captured and represented their words and ideas.
- The texts accompanying the models connected the places – many not yet built – with the potential experiences of people using them and so made the exhibition more accessible to non-architects
- The writer was able to draw out responses to place through conversation and questioning, in a non-threatening way and that generated interest from council officials and architects.
