Stalled Spaces

by Ruth Barker, 4 Aug 2011

Hello,

I’m just back from a very interesting meeting with Heather Claridge and her colleague Seamus Connolly, from Glasgow City Council’s Development and Regeneration Services team. Heather and Seamus are working on the Stalled Spaces initiative which I previously mentioned here. I learned a bit about the background of the initiative, and then we spoke about it’s potential for the future.

Stalled Spaces has its origin in a Council motion of 2008, which drew attention to the various spaces around the city where developments were not currently going ahead. An initial successful phase, in which GCC offered advice to organisations and community groups who wished to make use of these spaces, has been followed by the current strategy through which (in partnership with GHA) projects can apply for a small fund to help cover costs. The emphasis is very much on encouraging community-led initiatives to make use of these spaces while they are temporarily available, with the understanding that the intended development will still at some point go ahead.

Interestingly, Stalled Spaces seems so far to be unique. I haven’t found any other examples of an initiative that works in quite this way – where community activity is being funded, but not incorporated into any broader masterplan of civic strategy. Do let me know though, if you are aware of similar schemes, as we’d like to cover them.

It’s how to inspire community groups to find new ways to work with their Spaces that Heather and Seamus are now considering. 21 projects have so far succeeded in accessing the Stalled Spaces funding, of which the majority are temporary growing projects. While being clear that they greatly appreciate the value of these initiatives, the GCC team are keen to broaden the scope of the fund to support other kinds of project, too – including those that include public art. They point out that growing projects aren’t suited to every Space, nor to every community. Public art might be one way of broadening the spectrum of approaches – and might be a useful way of tackling the inherent temporary-ness of these spaces – caught as they are in a moment between their past and future incarnations.

So I suppose that this post is a first step to drawing more attention to Stalled Spaces and the opportunities it may offer artists who wish to work with a community to re-imagine, re-use, and re-define a Stalled Space near them. Though I’m sure the context is a challenging one, I also think that there maybe something very interesting here. We have two Reflections articles coming up about Stalled Space initiatives: one from Giant Productions about their Stalled Space project The Forgotten Island, and one from journalist Yasmin Ali, who is taking more of an urbanist’s overview. Look out for them both in September.

And if anyone is feeling inspired after reading this, do think about contacting the Stalled Spaces team, and let us know about your project, too.

More later,

R.

- nearly forgot. Two links for you: I came across this today, and was very intrigued: San Francisco’s Parklets; and PAR+RS’ administrator Berengere also forwarded me this addition to my ‘big ladies’ collection… Thanks – I think.