Plymouth High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) Cultural Programme
We led the Plymouth High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) Cultural Programme funded by Historic England that helped to reimagine the city centre and celebrated our heritage through community-led cultural activities.
From March 2020 to March 2024 Plymouth Culture led the Plymouth High Streets Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) Cultural Programme funded by Historic England that helped to reimagine the city centre and celebrate our heritage through community-led cultural activities.
The approach we took with the cultural programme was to test and pilot new models of working, particularly with regards to co-creating with communities and building city partnerships. By doing this we were be able to have a greater impact by leveraging additional partner resource and expertise and cementing the cultural programme within the city strategy to achieve legacy.
The cultural programme in Plymouth focused on three strands:
Activation - used creative and cultural activities as a mechanism for activating spaces within the heritage zone.
Vacancy spaces - made use of vacant spaces for cultural activity on a meanwhile use basis.
Public art - established a public art steering group for the city to take ownership of the existing Public Art Plan.
ACTIVATION
The programme launched with Artists Still/Moving hosting two creative conversations/workshops to explore themes related to heritage from a climate action, high streets, green recovery point of view. They’ve captured the participants hopes for the future of the High Street. The phrases created by the groups “Diverse Passion” and “Dreams Matter” were transformed into an illuminated sculpture and displayed in empty shops’ windows in the city centre.
The other projects under the Activation strand were:
The Desire Paths – A chalk map of Plymouth was drawn on the Piazza floor of the city centre and the public were invited to name the city’s streets after a hope or dream the have for the future. The performance was led by theatre company Third Angel with the contribution of three local artists selected specially for this opportunity.
PRIMEdesign – The Prime Design project celebrated Plymouth’s skating heritage by bringing together a group of skateboarders ranging in age from 10-18 that participated in workshops where they learned drawing, animation and design skills.
The group first worked with designer and illustrator Chris Alton exploring the City Centre history and geography to map how skateboarders navigate the city and the spaces they use. The outcomes from the encounter were a map of skating spots in Plymouth, an animation of the elements created for the map and a mural installed at the Civic Square hoarding.
Later the group worked with artists Dani Abulhawa and Bedir Bekar to reimagine and repurpose the Civic Centre roof as a skate-able, play-able sculpture referencing the current climate emergency and its possible future effects.
Meet me at the Sundial – We worked with Barbican Theatre to deliver a seven-months project that put Plymouthian’s words and relationship with the city centre in the limelight.
Six commissioned practitioners completed a residency on some of the major city bus routes and in high street cafes – listening, conversing and responding to people going about their day travelling into the city centre.
The residencies activities included sketching and writing workshops in the buses, opening conversations about the city and its future. A culminating immersive event took place in March 2023 at the Piazza/Sundial using a double decker City Bus as a gallery and performance space, including audio, visual, dance and poetry elements.
MEANWHILE USE
Plymouth Culture led a meanwhile use programme in Plymouth City Centre from March 2022 to December 2023, through the HAZ and Interreg C- Care project funds. The combination of the two funds allowed cultural activities to be placed into vacant high street units, where 17 case studies provided first-hand experience of the challenges and opportunity to integrate meanwhile use as an enabling mechanism into high street revitalisation plans. The meanwhile use programme enabled us to better understand our city property landscape and the barriers to reform.
Three stores located in the conservation area have tested the use of vacant spaces for cultural activities as part of our wider Meanwhile Use programme. PRIMEskaters had a workshop space at Royal Parade, Collective Sprite Arts hosted exhibitions and workshops at Old Town Street, and Climate Hub offered a welcoming space for varied activities and organisations for six months at New George St.
Find out more about this project and learning resources originated from it here
PUBLIC ART
HAZ brought together a Public Art Steering group of 15 professionals to take ownership of the existing Public Art Plan. Its aim was to engage experts and communities in the decision-making process and ensure the city’s public art is valued and celebrated. The group had the opportunity to commission 02 art interventions in the city, one of them as part of HAZ. “Two sides of the same coin”, was the one selected amongst other 14 proposals .
Two Sides of the Same Coin –. The artists from Queer District Collective brought an interactive ‘pub-like’ art installation packed with stories of Plymouth to the city centre Piazza. They explored the “very essence of being a Plymothian” by collecting and celebrating the stories of the LGBTQIA+ community for the art project. Two Sides of the Same Coin shared personal stories and experiences to foster a deeper understanding of Plymouth’s diverse heritage – and spark conversations about the city’s past and present as a united community.
