BLUEPRINTS: ME + YOUSTON
Me + Youston is an interactive research artwork created in collaboration with over 150 Euston residents. It is a creative community consultation that will hopefully help to shape the future of our real neighbourhood.
Camden Council commissioned Old Diorama Arts Centre to undertake research into community priorities around new housing. The voice of the community needs to feature front and centre when shaping our area, and so an agreement is to be created between the community and the groups responsible for delivering new housing. This agreement - the Housing Compact - should have the community principles and priorities around three themes: ‘What Makes a Good Home?’, ‘What Makes a Good Neighbourhood?’ and ‘How Do We Work Together To Make This a Reality?’
The Compact is to be written by members of the community at the end of this year, and our research - the community voice - is to be presented to help those people do that job.
To help them represent all of us.
To make sure we did this in the best way we could, ODAC partnered with a constellation of local organisations (Fitzrovia Youth in Action, Somers Town Community Association, Hopscotch Women’s Centre, and others) to reach deep into the community and talk directly to people of all ages, backgrounds and circumstances who call Euston home.
Across 14 Making/Conversation workshops, we asked Euston residents to share their experience of living in this area; to tell us about their homes, their neighbourhoods and their community, and to imagine what they’d like to see in a Euston of the future. Artists and community advocates - Caito Strongarm, Sarah Nicholl and Chrissie Pietzsch - wrote down everything the workshop participants told us: from their need for urgent repairs, their experiences of safety in the area, the ways they organise and self-govern, and what they dream of for the future.
And while we talked, we created.
We believe that people are the key to a community, so each key you see in this installation represents a participant in these workshops. The colourful building blocks are their creations; each starting at “square one” with a simple blank piece of felt and invited to create whatever they thought was important to a good neighbourhood, or a good home. These were then lovingly 3D-ified in the local Neighbourhood Makeshop, and brought here for you.
This is our neighbourhood.
You are allowed to touch the art. You can move it, stack it, and rearrange it any way you like.
Across the 29th, 30th, and 31st of October, this neighbourhood can be shaped by you. Make it what you want, and tell us why. It’s live, creative, interactive research - done differently than your usual surveys.
On the 1st of November, we will begin to assemble the neighbourhood according to the principles and priorities we have learnt throughout the week. We’ll then take this neighbourhood to the community assemblies where the Housing Compact will be written, and share it with the community members who will help to shape our future.
We invite you to play: to arrange and rearrange your ideal neighbourhood.
We invite you to make: if something is missing from your ideal neighbourhood, you can create it at our craft station and add it right away.
We invite you to listen: the stories of this neighbourhood can be heard! By using the penfriend wand, you can touch the stickers on the artworks and hear from the neighbourhood artists who created them.
We invite you to share: you can add your own stories by recording using the penfriend, or contribute to the research by engaging with the questions around the space.
We invite you to feel at home: have a cup of tea, a sit and a chat. Stay and play. Dream with us and add your voice to the collective conversation.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this artwork, and the research overall. We have been touched by hundreds of stories, and we hope we have captured them well. We believe that the people writing the compact will do their best to represent all of these stories, and all of us.
Thanks especially to:
If you have any questions or would like to interact or share, please talk to one of the friendly ODAC faces.
