Studio in Residence
This year Studio in Residence has explored the recent emergence of ‘urban rooms’ in towns and cities across the UK.
We need to decide what new stories we will tell, what new histories do we forge? What new futures do we face?
Marsha Ramroop
Building People, 2023
“These stories serve to reaffirm the right of all of us to be heard and respected; far from being democracy’s enemies, activists perhaps constitute its true guardians.” Stories of Activism in Sheffield, 1960 to 2012
Sheffield is a city that loves to tell stories of itself: ‘Steel City’, ‘The Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire’, ‘City on the Move’, ‘Music City’, ‘City of Sanctuary’, ‘City of Makers’, ‘Outdoor City’... People tell stories to form connections to their place and to each other, stories bind people together and create a sense of community, identity and shared purpose. Stories are powerful and those who are able to tell the story of their city hold power in the shaping of it. So claiming the right to tell stories, the right to be heard, is a political act.
This year Studio in Residence has explored the recent emergence of ‘urban rooms’ in towns and cities across the UK. These are spaces of direct democracy where local people can participate in the creation of stories that uncover the past, confront the present and give shape to the future of their place. We have worked ‘in residence’ at Live Works, the School of Architecture’s urban room in the city centre, to construct a space from found objects for the storying of the past, present and future of Sheffield, inviting local community activists, academics and artists to join us.
This co-designed, co-constructed space, through its material reuse, formal assemblage and the stories that are shared there, formed a playful and experimental 1:1 prototype for our emergent projects. Your projects co-exist as an ecosystem of urban rooms - together proposing a new community cultural infrastructure across Sheffield that actively engages citizens in decolonising its past, meeting the climate and systemic challenges of its present, and giving shape to hopeful stories for its future.