A Just City

**Please note this event will now take place at the Fine Art Lecture Theatre.

Creating a city that everyone feels part of and has a voice in shaping.

Join us as we discuss the role of the architecture, the arts and culture in helping bring about a more equal and inclusive city. We’ll explore how the arts can help foster collectiveness, cohesion and solidarity, and help us make sense of events and phenomena that take place across different scales and geographies, and in developing new imaginaries of fairer, more inclusive futures. We also wanted to explore some of the challenges faced in this work, from representation, to funding and an increasingly fragmented public sphere and political culture.

Speakers

Michael Richardson – Michael is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Newcastle University. His research is concerned with the geographies of social and environmental justice. Currently Michael is the lead researcher and evaluator of a National Lottery Climate Action Fund project titled Birds, Bees, Bikes and Trees. Michael developed this project with Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and North East Young Dads and Lads.

Daniel Mallo – Daniel is senior lecturer in architecture at Newcastle University and registered architect. His on-going research on Co-production explores the potential of design activism as a vehicle for the intensification of democratic practices in public space and a catalyst of new socio-material relations. He collaborates with local charities and communities across the North East, notably in the city’s West End with Fenham Pocket Park.

Helen Holtom – Helen is Communications Producer at D6: Culture in Transit. D6 are visual arts producers working with extraordinary artists, communities and partners across borders with a shared belief in the value of the arts in creating a more just and equal society. Besides working with artists to share their work internationally and locally, Helen is interested in the role of arts and culture in supporting connected communities and helping people access worlds and experiences beyond their own. Helen has an MA in Art History specialising in video art exploring themes of displacement and migration.

Hannah Kirkham  – Hannah is the For Solidarity Project Manager at the Newbridge Project. Hannah works to support the network of initiatives and organisations who are part of their ongoing For Solidarity project. She runs regular events and promotes the community work done locally that exists outside of restrictive economic models. She has been a member of NewBridge for 7 years and, amongst other creative projects, hand-crafts clothing using organic and recycled fabrics under the name Scout & Rae.