Sara Grisewood

Unit 3 presentation and additional text

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Introduction

 

My initial proposals for unit 3 included contacting the SDNPA, and an academic geographer or planner , with plans also to incorporate some kind of  contact with local museums and collections, eg. The Barbican Castle museum, Lewes and the East Sussex Records Office at The Keep, Falmer. This research is all in relation to a brownfield site in Lewes, the Phoenix industrial estate (North Street development), that I has been the focus of my practice, through a process of walking, making visual research and collecting found objects.

 

To date, I have followed through some of these initial proposals and also much of my practice and research for unit 2 has in fact been interdisciplinary,  looking at connections between art, architecture and Geography and urban Geography. At this stage, also, it is likely that my research, and interest in these intersections  will continue and form part of unit 4. 

 

 

For unit 3, I am presenting an interview, a question and answer session, which I had with an urban planner who I happened to meet as he stayed in my Airbnb in the autumn. The interview lasted about an hour and I recorded it and then transcribed it, albeit with a few interruptions from my cat Hector, who kept trying to vie for attention. I will present a few minutes of the actual recording during my presentation to give some idea of the sound of it.  For the  rest of the presentation I will make a resume of other activities undertaken,  and some thoughts on what I have gained from it in terms of my practice, and future developments.

 

Stages of unit 3 research

 

In November I visited the Wellcome Instituteto see Living with Buildings, Health and Architecture; an exhibition aiming to highlight how the approaches of architects, planners and designers have an influence on our health and wellbeing. I found Catherine Yass’s Royal London film  very moving; it shows the actual moments of destruction, with a camera  inside  the 250 year old hospital building, as it is blown up,  in Whitechapel. I perceive my interest in architecture connecting to a continuing interest with ruins, notably the cycle of demolishing and rebuilding, and subsequent gentrification. The exhibition included examples of post war architecture, built quickly with utopian expectations , “The exhibition revisits the vision laid out for postwar development – plans for new towns to control the urban sprawl and reduce overcrowding in London, and the construction of new high rise municipal housing to make physical the values of the new welfare state”.

 

I have Contacted South Downs National Park re north street quarter in lewes. I spoke to someone at their main office based at Midhurst in West Sussex and they suggested contacting the link officer, Roy Little, which I have done and we had a meeting. He also suggested I read the planning application online and also the SDNPA local plan which he described as “cutting edge and the first landscape led local plan.” He also mentioned I might like to attend the hearing sessions to be held at the Amex in Falmer, on 11/12 to 13/12. ( I did not) 

 

I read some of the SDNPA website : “Natural Englands evaluation for natural beauty :… includes evidence of time-depth or historical influence on the landscape .. a need was detected to protect features of cultural significance – however minor – which reveal a landscapes “time-depth. “ time depth is defined as the long term… eg. Abandoned chalk pits… visible evidence of past human activity.” I wondered if Green Wall in Lewes is an example of time-depth, it is the only listed part of the brownfield site,  a medieval part of the old town wall, close to where people did their washing on the edge of town in the town ditch. It is shown on medieval maps of Lewes, close to a tannery, and Dobells field, on the edge of town. 

 

Meeting with Roy Little, SDNPA

Tuesday 6thNovember 4pm at Depot cinema, Lewes, I had a meeting with Roy Little, link officer between SDNPA and Lewes district council re. role of SDNPA in relation to planning and specifically to the North Street, or Northern  quarter,  site. I have read some of the local plan and some of the planning applications online but obviously they contain literally hundreds of documents. My intention was to ask the following 

questions :

 What are the main challenges faced by planners. How important are the economic pressures, political and local pressures. 

How important is it to take into consideration the industrial past and what it means for communities. The site has a history that includes an iron and steel foundry, a tannery and a paper mill, predominantly from the 18thand 19thcenturies. 

How much will there be in terms of affordable housing and community space, and affordable work spaces ?

How do planners and the developers and the SDNPA,  deal with landscape – the history and the heritage, preserving the historical nature of landscape?

Overall, it was not a very exciting discussion. I have looked at the plans and am not convinced that they in any way provide an imaginative response to the site or provide what is needed in terms of affordable housing, not to mention social housing, or places for creative industries. 

We talked about planning in general, and how subjective it is and I asked about the major challenges, without being overtly challenging myself about housing issues and demolition of historical buildings !. He said the major issue was the flooding issue, which had to be approached sensitively etc. (whole area is potentially a flood plain), the other major challenge was the housing one – the % of the new builds which have to be affordable housing. Affordable housing only means that those on still relatively high incomes for south east will be able to afford them, they will not be accessible to those on very low incomes. But, I had to see this talk as an introduction. He behaved as a link officer should and gave me names of people to talk to in relation to specific aspects of development, but he was not particularly forthcoming on anything ! So, next stage is to contact Michael Scannell, the historical buildings adviser. And someone called Kelly Porter, who is the project officer, based in Midhurst. She is also responsible for site at Shoreham cement works which would be another really interesting site to work at in the future. (I have not as yet contacted these advisers).

 

Phoenix Rising

Also, I spoke to a woman I know who is involved with the main local pressure group set up in opposition to this development. She said that they are still continuing as group and having meetings and she will pass on any details. They are called Phoenix Rising. They put forward alternative planning proposals at an earlier stage with lots more affordable work spaces and housing and reuse of some of the buildings. I have had emails from them about site as demolition has begun on part of it (7/1/19) though some people say it is simply to keep their planning permission live and is not the actual start of the development which is very slow, possibly due to Brexit.

 

Visit to Architecture Biennale, Venice. 7/11/18

In November I visited the Venice Architecture Biennale.  The theme this year was FREESPACE which has lots of different interpretations but overall it meant I got to see a huge amount of different creative architectural ideas all loosely based around a wide interpretation of freespace, proposals, and actual projects, from lots of different places. 

 

I decided to visit this to get a bigger picture, a move out from a local focus. Also, to see a way forward from ruins, the other side of the cycle of demolition, one of development and regeneration. Notable exhibits were : V&A’s  section of the demolished Robin Hood Gardens, with a film by Do Hoh Suh; and the French Pavilion focussed on repurposed buildings while acknowledging their various pasts, the emphasis was of regeneration through reuse and repurposing, with a  respect for local materials, and a sense of place and community. Also, the exhibit by Assemble architects of tiles made at Granby Workshop in Liverpool. 

 

 

Peter Roberts, question and answer session 27/12/18

 

I have also met another Planner, called Peter Roberts, who has been involved with urban planning at a much higher, strategic level and has written and lectured about it and knew Doreen Massey ! He was a much more exciting, and interesting person to talk to in terms of the social issues and bigger picture of urban planning. I am going to make a series of questions to ask him and will meet or email them. He seemed more keen on the importance of people and places rather than buildings. He also has a much clearer standpoint on issues of social housing. He has worked all over the  UK on big urban regenerations such as Byker  and estate, Newcastle. 

 

 

 

Outcomes of unit 3 research

 

In relation to my conversation with Peter Roberts, I did not feel entirely persuaded that the arts had much of a role in generic urban regeneration and planning. He also cites a lack of imagination in the UK in how areas can be sensitively re developed following deindustrialisation and mentions methods used in places such as the Ruhr Valley in Germany.

I will continue to research this and be aware of my own personal experience in the South East, the effects of rise of property prices, people being priced out of their local areas, subsequent gentrification. I am also intending to look more specifically at the history of textile industry, especially in relation to Blackburn, Lancashire, as my mother grew up there and her parents, my grandparents, lived all their lives there, though this will have to be part of a future project, after the MA. 

I have emailed the photographer Sirkka Lissa Kontinnen who made films and photographs of the old Byker estate in Newcastle, pre the Erskine buildings and then after, alongside setting up Amber Collective, an archive of films of the area, and industry in particular. This also prompts research into documentary photography and film making in a wider context but also how my fine art practice can develop further within these points of reference. I also intend to continue with local history research in Lewes, at the museum, and at the Keep, East Sussex Record Office. Following on with looking at examples of art in the public realm, a contemporary land art,  I have also recently contacted Suzanne Heath, a public art consultant, offering art curation, and art commissioning (currently working in the South West and at Bath university)  and asked her some questions including : 

 

Do you think art projects, public art projects, are someties used to create feel good feelings with residents and are a cynical way for developers  to demonstrate that they are making links with local communities, to some extent just add ons to the planning process OR do you think that art does have a role to play and that the process of using artists viewpoints which are so different from those of strategic planners can have a really positive bearing for social good …. Also, do you think process and events, as opposed to permanent sculptures,  can be just as effective as a means to achieve this ?

 

 

Maybe public arts work well in projects like certain placesin Preston. This has been followed through as a collaboration over a number of years, involving artists, the Unitversity, the city art gallery, and in words of Suzanne Heath has been “an inherently liminal project which variously appears and disappears fom view and is diffifult to pin down”. In the face of austerity, there has been little funding more recently and public art has adapted to being more elusive, durational and ephemeral, rather than one-off permanently sited sculptures. (Since submission of Unit 3 I have received an email back from Suzanne Heath with really interesting answers to my questions :

 

 

Hi Sara

 

Thanks for your email. I could spend a very long time writing you an even longer reply! 

 

The nature of art in relation to a development - or an empty site - will vary greatly in terms of who is funding and commissioning it, and how it has come about. The situation is complicated in a situation like Foxhill, where the housing association is behaving as a developer, but is at the same time a social housing landlord with tenants, and where those groups may have conflicting desires. 

 

Although it is essentially now an archive, I would recommend to you a lot of the material still on www.publicartonline.org.uk 

 

I absolutely think art has a role to play. In the best cases where they have been commissioned by developers, artists can encourage developers to look and think differently, and they can also influence developments for the good. The key is that the artist is not being employed by the developer to have a completely free reign, rather it is an iterative and collaborative, evolving process involving many people and many conversations. These conversations, if they are honest, will throw up the real issues of a place - which may not be something that any art commissioning can solve or address. 

 

I really would not work on these projects if I thought they were a purely cynical attempt by developers in order to make links with local communities. Having said that the worst projects in my view are those that ’tick the box’ of community engagement (i.e. are lazy) as opposed to resulting in any genuine open engagement with its context. Generally people are so suspicious of anything that developers - particularly housing developers - do, that whatever they do they are treated with suspicion, whether it is art commissioning or providing any kind of other community benefit.

 

My own, more optimistic view, is that responsible developers cannot ignore the impact that new development has on the communities around it, and they need to be open and honest about that and engage with people on the difficult issues that people really care about, e.g. loss of green space, loss of public space, the high cost of housing etc. Public art commissioning, when done well, offers a route to that engagement, that goes beyond just putting up a load of new houses.

 

The most enlightened developers recognise the potential benefits that culture can bring - although there is a danger that artists can be instrumentalised - you just need to look at someone like British Land https://www.britishland.com/about-us/placemaking Their view is that culture enhances the offer of a place and in a city this can often help make them more profit (I’m not saying I agree with this view, but it certainly exists!) Obviously the art commissioning they do is not an accident, and it can be instrumentalised in this way - I think artists need to be very careful what they put their names to in circumstances like this - but on the other hand, you could also argue the whole art market is about profit.

 

I personally am not a fan of developments which invest in pre-existing public artworks by big name artists that have just been bought 'off the shelf' and then plopped in a space - in other words not work that responds to its surroundings and context and has been commissioned in response to it. The latter site responsive kinds of works that are commissioned responses provide an opportunity for artists to explore perhaps unknown historical information of an area that are perhaps little known or ‘unsung’.

 

The challenge with temporary works is that often developers and local authorities are not keen to spend whole public art budgets on something that won’t last, although I would say that that view is changing.

 

Developers would probably have an easier life if they did not dip their toe in the waters of working with artists as given that community engagement (if a project is done properly) is a requirement of a public commission, invariably it gives people who are unhappy with the development another opportunity to complain about it. 

 

Sometimes the developers have been required to spend money on public art, in which case they are doing it because it is a requirement of a section 106 agreement with the local authority.

 

If they are not required to spend money on public art, they may still choose to do so, but they will then only spend what they think the benefit of the project is worth, and may even change their mind about doing it further down the line. 

 

I would not say that process and events can be ‘just as effective’ as permanent sculptures - in my view both of these things can be done well, or badly. It really depends what the process or event is, or what the permanent sculpture is, and with the latter, what process and events led up to it (as these invariably form part of the first stage of artist research for any permanent artwork) 

 

I tend to, where possible, use both approaches, temporary and permanent, but it will depend on a huge number of factors including the budget, the site, the timescale, the stakeholders, the developer/client, the requirements of the planning application, the section 106 agreement etc etc etc.

 

Hope that might go some way towards answering your question.

 

Suzanne 

 

Suzanne Heath

Freelance Curator & Project Manager 

69 Locksbrook Road, Bath BA1 3ES

07843 417474

info@suzanneheath.co.uk

www.suzanneheath.co.uk

@Suzanne_Heath 

 

It could be that the nature of my research has quite significantly changed and refocused as a result of this unit ; I intend to pursue the following questions :  

 

1. How significant and relevant is the study of a  history of land art and site, and non site, situations and happenings…in relation to public art and its relationship with place. ? 

2. How is art used or what role can art  play in development of communities in face of urban, and rural, regeneration. In the light of continuing lack of investment, continued decline in traditional skilled work, and the uneven nature of capitalism, and areas left abandoned etc. Can art have a role here ?

3. In terms of my broader perception of painting as a discipline I do feel that ‘painting’ continues to have a role  here, though in a much wider sense, and  my definition of painting continues to expand, the question is though…whether it actually works to help towards creating  social good, or is it just an add on ? 

 

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

Q & A with Peter Roberts 27thDecember 2018

edited transcript

 

 

 

Peter is Professor Emeritus of Sustaninable Spatial Development at Leeds University and has a wide range of urban regeneration and housing experience,over a long period of time, and as discussed here,he chaired and led a task force for the re-development of the Byker Estate in Newcastle, from 2008.

 

Edited transcript of talk.

SG : What are the main issues or challenges of a major urban regeneration project ?

 

PR : Its about having overall  strategic vision rather than hoping it will emerge, a broad process.. and being clear about the end goal and not being  afraid to alter pathways to achieve this.

It cannot be done by one group need lots of other people, developers and, importantly,  in partnership with the community, personally I think, but nowadays developers get prerun on what they want, in my opinion..in recent years views of community have been given insufficient attention.

 

SG : Can you give examples of where issues have dominated.. 

 

PR : there is no standard formula, that you can apply to Manchester say, and to somewhere like  Lewes, but you can learn lessons and use generic principles, 

 

You’ve got to look at individual projects. Or a series of linked projects.. in large area..

For example , in the lower Don Valley, a good example of  where you needed to do a, b and c to achieve your outputs, the main issue was a heavily contaminated area which had to be dealt with, to stop it, in order to create viable development platforms 

 

Sg : Were the outcomes clear at the outset ?

 

PR : you always get outcomes which were unexpected..or a bonus.. For example where more office space created , therefore more possible jobs can be created,  for people who would not otherwise be employed.. and that then raises household income and then brings people out of poverty.

 

SG :How do you make sure that (the development) is the  right way to go

 

PR : survey, analysis , plan - the Geddesian  formula (in relation to Patrick Geddes, Scottish urban planner and bioregionalist) , you need to do your homework. Then you can provide better housing. 

If do want to raise income, might have to choose between open space, eg, to make the development, then  momentum is created for providing better housing.

 

SG : give me example of how you would find out what communities need ? Do you use agencies ?

 

PR : I think if you use 3rdparties , you miss out… on a lot of rich picture insights, really important that people who do the work, engage with the locality.

You need to get local, elected, representatives on your side at the beginning of the process, you need to talk to land owners and property developers, and others who have stake in area, people who run businesses and

 

SG : And ordinary people ?

 

PR : Yes, and if high resident population and try to deal with populations which might involve some degree of or partial displacement, even in short term, then it is absolutely imperative to deal with them

So I would use techniques like planning for real. People engaged with things which are important in their area….. workshops with people and with children in primary school etc. Doing planning with any large, sizable community… it’s a bit like 3d chess, you need to keep lots of possibilities in your vision …

 

SG : What do you think about people like Doreen Massey and her concept of space as constellation…

 

PR : its absolutely a constellation, yes, lives and communities are complex... in order that we can present clear strategies at the outset… but getting to that point, it’s a bit like for example, look at Brexit, it was so ill defined… the current situation is total shambles as no clear picture at beginning… no strategic planning at the beginning of the process…

 

My cat Hector interrupted at this stage by climbing on the table in front of us !

 

Actually, … planning, when dealing with large scale development, its not a fuzzy thing, its not a case of oh wouldnt it be nice… its a precise process., where we can set criteria as to  what success would look like and can begin to develop something which looks like it will allow you to (partnerships) to achieve your objectives.

 

SG : Can you talk a bit about one you’ve been involved with which was successful… ?

 

PR : I was involved in Byker development in Newcastle and that’s a good example of different groups working together for successful outcome. 

 

Here follows a description of the estates in Newcastle and the topography of Walker and Byker in relation to riverside, and the main differences between them. And a reference to Alice Mah and her research in Walker (Industrial Ruination, Community and Place 2012) 

Byker has always had a strong generational residential community whereas Walker was much more heavily industrialised.

 

SG :   you talked about populations being shifted out, displaced,  have you experienced that ?

 

PR : early in my career, yes, when, they were doing comprehensive renewal, where people were shipped out, dumped into a monocharacteristeic estate which then became ‘hellhole’ estates

 

SG : Can you give an example ?

PR : Yes, Kirkby , outside Liverpool (this estate is documented in a film by Nick Broomfield, Behind the Rent Strike, 1976), from the late 1950s, the 60s and,the 1970s, was a classic, displacement, dumping ground, from inner city Liverpool. 

 

SG : is this still happening ?

 

PR: No, its not happening on that scale so much now,… we’ve learnt our lesson. Was Post war redevelopment wholly justified… in some cases it was.. in Newcastle, however, a policy of in situ redevelopment was put in place, in areas of very poor standards of housing,  within the communities. I was a postgrad in Newcastle at that time and observed it happening. (This is also the time of the demolition of the original Byker estate… see photos and films of Sirkka Lissa Kontinnen and the Amber Collective).

 

Then many years later, I was involved, and appointed board member of homes and communities agency, John Healey, now shadow housing minister, asked me if I would lead a task force to develop the

Byker estate in… 2008.

 

SG: just about when the recession hit ?

 

PR: yes,…the Byker estate had become part of Your Homes Newcastle, city council owned but with an arms length management, Byker was a problem as it needed capital investment but by then it was listed…(it was listed in 2006)

 

SG : and did it have a community led group ?

 

PR : A hugely powerful community group. I was chairing an independent taskforce to develop a new model which would reflect the unique character of the estate and get investment which would allow it to move forward. We had to work with english heritage, on how could we remodel what was then the largest grade 2 listed estate In the UK, and we needed them to help and it was a really interesting partnership and one day I will write it up…but I also said we needed the residents involved in it …all through its history residents were active… now its still managed  by the people, for the people... but the there were voids, uninhabitated, parts that had fallen in to extremely poor standards of repair, 

 

SG : can I ask was this because this sort of architecture was badly built or was it just not looked after over a long period of time by the local authority ?

 

PR : the original buildings used  non-standard materials, different sizes of bricks, continental, so just to rebuild a door, would cost 3 x that of a normal council house, one or two architectural features which were really important to the look, such as the Byker wall which needed to be maintained but were costly. We needed economic solutions but managed properly and a social solution as here we had living conditions which were really  deteriorated but people felt very strongly about it, by now some of them were 2ndor even 3rdgeneration residents and really attached to the place, so we needed to create a model which respected peoples attachment to place, and come up with model for place management and ownership, we created the Byker Community Trust where the land would be owned by tenants.

 

SG : So it can still exist as social housing ?

 

PR: Yes, its still affordable for low incomes.

 

SG : a good example that can be looked at for other places ?

 

PR : Yes ! im very biased ! , I chaired the task force for 4 years. Very strong support from local councillors, the labour MP, and the community representatives and the tenants association. 

 

My job was to be a sympathetic independent chair.. and also an advocate in central government, with the city council, and English heritage, for the redevelopment of social housing which was in a state of dereliction and new elements around the estate. It was quite a big achievement… 

 

SG : and you got to know the place well ?

 

PR : I could walk you round Byker blindfold as I walked every single inch of that estate. 

 

SG : And knew people ?

 

PR : Yes, I got to know a lot of the residents, travelled there from west Yorkshire once a week…

Walker  doesn’t have the  same community ownership, doesn’t have same mix of residents, its heavily industrialised, Byker was always seen as special and we could build on that cachet and Walker was and is a much more difficult proposition. and at this stage now there was a coalition government (conservative/libdem) but, importantly, there was still enough money in the  public purse for financial support for this project to go ahead. 

 

SG : Whats your view on current urban regeneration, is there a need to rethink large scale urban regeneration ?

 

PR : We need to adjust to changed circumstances… actually Newcastle isn’t that bad it’s the secondary and tertiary centres that … how do you deal with areas of west Cumbria, north east Lancashire, former coalfield areas which… are like mining settlements in old west in john wayne films, ghost towns, logically you would  think they would just disappear, but in tightly knit urban societies, they don’t, people, two, three, sometimes four,  generations have lived in those mining or textile communities, and clap trap like Norman Tebbits get on your bike, was just idiotic… we’re not in a society like the America in the 1860s, continually moving west in covered wagons. My personal view, is that the  forces of capital have benefitted massively from people who have gone to live there to be coalminers…plenty of people made a fortune on the backs of migrant labour, some of the most productive parts of this country, its due to the work of for example,  east African Sikhs, kicked out of East Africa. Theres a debt to people who moved, to these old industrial places, a debt of honor to those who went there, to the societies there, you cant ignore the economic base of these places. 

SG : Can you give an example of a place like this..

 

PR : Places we have abandoned, some of the east Lancashire textile towns, some of the communities in places like the Dearne valley, are in a shocking state, some efforts, like ironically from EU funds, but these are areas where people voted in droves for Brexit. We’ve almost just given up… the present government and the coalition government just gave up on UK regional policy, abandoned these places and theres virtually no active, real, spatially targeted investment taking place. These so called city deals…they are lightweight compared to whats needed.. the level of need and level of satisfaction of that need is totally out of sinc.

 

SG : and the role of the government at the moment ?

 

PR : Its rubbish, its lack of investment Were talking about capital investment, if you invest in places you do get a real return just to contrast the way the coal industry was mismanaged in the uk during the back end of the Major govt, the coal industry was butchered…compare it to the managed decline in the  Netherlands, Germany and France, people there given help and support to retire early or a path to reemployment, theyve managed transition much better; we have allowed collapse and then we try and pick up the pieces. 

 

SG : Do you feel depressed

 

PR :  luckily I’m one of those people who doesn’t get depressed, I see it as a challenge !

 

 

 

SG : Will you be behind Jeremy Corbyn ?

PR : I will support any government that maintains a  relationship with the European Union , with a positive ,proactive, socio economic approach. The Conservatives have run out of ideas.. Look at 

Rail infrastructure, an absolute fundamental inhibitor to economic re-growth, it takes longer now to get from Hull to Liverpool than in Victorian times.

 

SG : and can artists have a role in urban regeneration ?

 

PR : Artists have been very useful members of partnership teams, to find out what makes a place tick.. oral histories are very good, finding etc. anchor points,heritage, that can be discovered through art exploration, for example asking questions: “what was this place like, why is that like that ? that little, scruffy bit of land, what did it used to be like ? At a place called Northmoor in Manchester, artists worked with the community ad the Manchester Methodist Housing association to restore a derelict park, that use to be a very fine important Victorian park, and restored and used by the communities around.

 

 

Some of our best practice shows what we can do… but we’ve not persisted, what we’ve got… are little bits of sparkle, and big dark areas… We haven’t put enough effort in to things that make a difference, copy cat doesnt work, but basic principles do..