‘SYMBIOSIS’ A response to my time on a mini residency in the city of london

In 2023 I returned for a short time with my family to the London/Broxbourne area.
And was Commissioned to take on initially some codesign workshops in the city, which turned in to a small on the ground 3 day residency exploring Women in the city, autho it expanded to be more focused on community assets, I still found it fascinating exploring the city outside of the train in from Cheshunt.

In conversations with things made public and the Architects I had initially thought about creating a Textile map that people added to as I walked around the city. But I was exploring the use of Google maps as an easy space for me to plot and refine what I plot on the go.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1Hgl3MGpMd38MYCtNT0RPI5DItYUOxhQ&ehbc=2E312F

I found there was more to explore here then first imagined. 3 days is a very micro micro residency. Maybe my practice is not made for such small engagment times , my process is slow and evolving as I meet greet and speak to people . or take a grasp of my surroundsings, routes hidden mazes of joy & glimps of exciting new worlds in a midst of central london.

• Area of interest – The building
• Research & history of the area
• Directions from London Bridge station (my main routes)
• Garden Spaces
• Local Community Spaces
• A women’s perspective of the City of London

Above are the categories I seemed to group diffrent experiences in to, but they all over lap and can be explored further.
I took this time to take photos, notes voice recordings and think about Mapping and using textiles as part of this.

I may have been more confident to talk to more people if someone else was with me, autho I think a few more days might have grown my confident in my own understanding of the city and observations of movement ,people landscape would have given me more grounding.

I was able to define an area around the building that the strategy was made for and took my time asking one person at significant spots on my route ‘How do you feel about women in the city?’

these conversations are pinned on the Google maps above. I really enjoyed both online and offline creations. It was a chance to explore what can be made with ‘My Maps’ on Google maps. Public maps that you can add to according to what your mapping/interests etc.

I realised during this project that digital and physical mapping can co existing really wonderfully together and make for a more rounded view of a place. And in this instance a very heavily action research approach needed me to organise my findings somehow and the Google maps have me a chance to display photos, collage, written word and map my journey in the process.

It almost felt like a half finished project in the research stages but it really excited me to explore both textiles,collage, written word and mapping combined. And after all it was part of a developing cultural strategy so let’s call it creative research.