Urban Fringe

Celebrating communities

URBAN Fringe was a pilot project by Design South East to commission four artists to capture and explore the relationships between artists, place and communities – their values and customs. 

Artists Simon Barker, Nayan Kulkarni, Jo Roberts and Stephen Turner were commissioned to work in the ‘fringes’ of Medway and Swale developing celebratory interventions and community engagement with the communities who lived there. 

Our role was to work with the artists to develop and support them during the commission period, giving them time and space to produce the work, open up networks and attract audiences to the community events. 

At the community events drawings, maps, photography, pressed flowers, ‘essence’ testing and a film screening were explored to broaden the idea of ‘place’ beyond the physical and to help communities think more intuitively about their area, and the connection to regeneration and change.