Co-design, curation and delivery of Rodney Street tunnel exhibition. Working collaboratively with local groups, nationwide organisations and international partners we transformed this former railway tunnel, giving it a new lease of life as home to an outdoor participatory photography exhibition. Developed, built and co-created with local stakeholders it aimed to catalyse local regeneration and build social capital.
One of our first projects at Here+Now landscape architecture and co-design studio, the project won a ‘Regional Award for Scotland’ as part of the Planning and Placemaking Awards 2016. It also won both the ‘Regeneration’ and ‘Chairman's Award’ 2016 as part of the Scottish Design Awards.
The collaborative process that brought the exhibition to life offered a unique opportunity to test innovative co-design methods, demonstrating the power of participatory planning to foster community-driven regeneration and inspire broader, sustainable change in urban spaces.
The Hold Me Dear: Four Cities, [Extra]ordinary Places exhibition invited local residents to share photographs of meaningful but lesser-known places in their cities. The curated final images printed for the tunnel exhibition revealed a personal insight into a residents’ view of their city - the places that matter to local people beyond the usual tourist landmarks. Photographs were displayed in the Rodney Street tunnel as part of the international City Link Festival, and featured online on the Hold Me Dear website. The project featured in international press and won 3 Scottish Design Awards.
In September 2015 I led a team of volunteers and built environment professionals to realise the Hold Me Dear exhibition in Rodney St tunnel, Edinburgh. This month-long outdoor photography exhibition - supported by Sustrans, City of Edinburgh Council and Friends of George IV Park - transformed a unique but dark tunnel walking route into a vibrant destination. The exhibition featured photographs of the everyday public spaces treasured by local residents in the four twinned City Link Festival cities: Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Istanbul, and Hamburg. This initiative was part of a wider initiative testing novel co-design methods within Here+Now landscape architecture and co-design studio of which I was co-Founder/Director, and which focused on community engagement, creative placemaking, and urban regeneration.
The inspiration for the exhibition stemmed from earlier community work facilitated in the Canonmills neighbourhood by Here+Now earlier in 2015. Using innovative engagement techniques like the ‘Pep Talk,’ we developed a community-led brief for neighbourhood regeneration. Rodney Street tunnel was identified by local residents, businesses, and organisations as the ideal neighbourhood location to transform a neglected space into a vibrant creative destination along the cycle path. Based on this community-driven desire for change, and having already established Hold Me Dear as a worldwide participatory online photography project, we decided to use this as a means to curate and create a physical exhibition. This pilot project aimed to unite local stakeholders, spark action, and drive regeneration efforts through a combined bottom-up and top-down approach.
Open 24/7 for a month, the exhibition also featured a launch event, which welcomed local residents, visitors from Edinburgh, and international guests. The event included a community picnic, talks on inspiring regeneration projects from partner organizations, live music by Jazz Danmark, a free bike maintenance workshop from Grease Monkey Cycles, live mural painting by local artists, and bike tours to local cultural venues, all part of the City Link Festival, with support from MyAdventure and Sustrans.
