"Belonging to Whom?" redefines community engagement by inviting participants to discuss street ownership from emotional, legal, historical, physical and economic perspectives. Through collective thinking workshops, we aim to gather visions for city regeneration by transforming designated streets surfaces through speculative design.

Over the course of a week, you are invited to participate in a series of collective thinking and design workshops, culminating in a final live/online presentation. All resulting ideas, writings, drawings, videos, and materials will be curated into a digital exhibition.

The program begins on November 3rd with an introductory live/online session. There will be five 2-hour workshops on November 3rd and 5th, where participants will engage in synchronised sessions to debate and propose ideas in groups of three or five. After these sessions, group members can continue sharing ideas asynchronously and upload their materials to the project website until November 8th. A wrap-up and analysis session with all participants will take place on November 10th, live/on-line, at the Ainslie+Gorman Arts Centre. The workshops will examine the transformative power of regenerating life on the hard surfaces of contemporary cities. By redesigning surfaces, we will emphasise shared responsibility and collective awareness of how open spaces and streets impact climate change, liveability, and community cohesion.

Participants are encouraged to join in person or online. Through a speculative approach, they will take ownership of public, private or semi-public surfaces and collaboratively redesigning and discussing ideas to assert their presence and influence in the urban landscape.

The focus of the project is Elouera Street, from the Mort Street roundabout to the Lonsdale Street roundabout. The objective is to rethink and redesign in a hypothetical scenario where any accessible surface can be modified. Hard surfaces could be transformed into permeable, soft materials to liquid, or the earth beneath could be exposed.

The workshops will be held in person and on-line at the Ainslie+Gorman Arts Centre. The entire process and community engagement will be meticulously documented and shared online to preserve and disseminate the journey.

This project is supported by Embassy of Spain in Canberra.

Image | Ines Benavente Molina | Belonging to Earth 2024 | Image courtesy of the artist