Community Maker and The Portland Inn Project - Anna Francis

Community Maker (2015-2017) and The Portland Inn Project (2016-ongoing) explore the effects of artist involvement on combined community redevelopment and urban renewal projects. The research has taken the form of community engagement events and skills workshops.

Community Maker focused on the Portland Street area of Stoke-on-Trent, where 33 derelict and abandoned houses were famously refurbished and sold for £1 each in an attempt to drive social regeneration. It used Asset Based Community Development methodologies, using local spaces, cultures, skills, and social relationships to create a range of arts-based workshops and social events for community members. Francis investigated how artist-led activities empowered community members to discover, discuss, and develop priorities for local change and for building relationships with service-providers and local government.

Portland Inn tests and applies findings from Community Maker. It is a collaboration with the artist Rebecca Davies, who operates as a central figure within artist-and-community-led civic change. The project involves the community developing an architectural plan for the renovation of a disused pub into a permanent community space, and the use of arts events to identify priorities for local infrastructure and government services and to generate economic investment into the Portland Street area.

 Francis has disseminated her research methodology and findings through a public programme of displays, arts events, and research workshops, throughout Stoke-on-Trent, and through exhibitions at the British Ceramics Biennial (2015, 2017), the Potteries Museum (2018) and the AirSpace Gallery (2015-ongoing). She has also disseminated the work through conferences throughout the UK and Europe, including The Social Art Summit (Site Gallery, Sheffield, 2018) and the Social Art Summit (Tate Exchange, London, 2019). The research has been documented in a Guardian online documentary (2018) and was used as a case study on participatory art in Francois Matarasso’s A Restless Art (2019).