Exploring belonging within a community cafe

The Place

I approached the Hub because I was interested in exploring what belonging might look and feel like where different cultures and communities meet.

The Hub is a café, food bank and community space where people gather, volunteer and support one another. Set up by Hoole Baptist Church and run with the local community, it is open to everyone, including displaced people.

Beginning with Attention

I arrived without a predetermined outcome. Spending time in the Hub, I began simply by paying attention.

Gradually I became aware of the small acts of care, generosity and creativity happening every day. Conversations, shared meals, volunteering and making all seemed to contribute to a place where people felt able to be themselves.

Rather than searching for a particular story, I allowed the relationships, rhythms and atmosphere of the space to guide the enquiry.

Making

Making is how I explore my relationship with a place.
I immersed myself in the rhythms of the Hub, using photography, conversation, drawing, collage and writing to process my experience. As relationships developed, the people, conversations and creativity I encountered naturally became woven into the work.
Rather than illustrating ideas I already held, the making itself became a way of understanding the place more deeply.
I became interested in how different communities overlapped (church members, volunteers, café users and visitors), and how safe spaces can create the freedom for deeper conversations, creativity and self-expression.

What Emerged

Belonging wasn’t something I brought to the Hub as a theme. It emerged through paying attention.
The work revealed the creativity, generosity and relationships already present within the community, creating opportunities to recognise and celebrate what was already there.
It also highlighted how places of welcome can encourage confidence, creativity and self-expression, simply by allowing people to feel seen, valued and able to contribute.

Capturing

Throughout the residency, different moments of the enquiry found their own form.
Printed zine • Photography • Participatory artworks • Creative conversations • Collaborative making • Lyrics • Card constructions

Hubsville Zine

Rather than documenting the residency, this zine became another way of thinking with the place. It brings together photographs, drawings, lyrics, conversations and fragments gathered throughout my time at the Hub.

It isn’t intended as a report of what happened, but as an invitation to experience some of the questions, relationships and discoveries that emerged along the way.

What this place taught me

With each residency, I hope to learn something about what it means to be human.

This residency reminded me that belonging is rarely created through programmes or initiatives alone. More often, it grows through ordinary acts of welcome, shared purpose and the opportunity to contribute. The Hub showed me that creativity can become a form of hospitality, helping people feel seen, valued and able to participate in the life of a place.

I leave with a deeper curiosity about how places create the conditions in which people can become more fully themselves. That question now becomes part of the ongoing enquiry.

The Conversation Continues

Although this residency had a defined timeframe, my relationship with the Hub continues.

The conversations, artwork and experiences remain part of an ongoing exploration of belonging. They continue to shape future work, just as future work may continue to reshape my understanding of this place.

I hope the zine, now living within the Hub itself, continues to spark conversations and moments of recognition long after the residency has ended.

Listening as artistic practice.

The Place

A community storytelling project developed with ACTS, creating opportunities for people to share lived experience with care and respect.

Beginning with Attention

A core part of the project involved listening to participants’ stories. I approached these conversations not simply as a way of gathering information, but as moments of connection and trust.

My role was to listen attentively, reflect back what I heard, and ensure each person felt seen and respected in how their story was represented.

What I Noticed

Listening revealed not only individual stories but recurring themes of identity, resilience and belonging.

For many participants, the process of telling their story (and being listened to without judgement) became an opportunity to reflect, notice patterns, and gain new insights into their own lives and experiences.

I became interested in how careful listening can itself become a creative act.

Making

From these conversations, I created a series of artistic responses, allowing different aspects of the stories to find their own form.

Some became drawings and visual compositions; others found expression through poetry, songwriting, photography, objects and graphic responses.

These weren’t illustrations of people’s experiences, but creative translations in response to the themes, emotions and textures of the stories themselves.

The process was about care and accountability: holding the human reality of the project while also meeting the practical needs of reporting and evaluation.

Moments of Capture

The stories found expression through:

Drawings • Poetry • Songs • Photography • Objects • Visual responses • Story documentation • Participant reflections • Visual identity • Website section

“It felt great to be able to talk about myself with just the aiming of getting to know me better. It refreshes, in my mind and heart, who I am and where I come from.”

Mariana

What I’m Taking from This Place

This project deepened my understanding of listening as a creative practice. Being listened to with care can create space for people to recognise aspects of their own experience that might otherwise remain unnoticed.

It left me with a continuing curiosity about the relationship between attention, story and human connection, and about how creative practice might help us see ourselves and one another differently.

The Conversation Continues

Although the project had a defined timeframe, the questions it raised remain part of my ongoing enquiry.

The stories, conversations and artistic responses continue to inform my understanding of how we relate to ourselves and each other… as individuals, communities and cultures.

Reimagining a place through creativity and hope.

The Place

Bridge of Hope grew from a residency in Saltney Ferry, where a local bridge had become associated with crisis and loss. Working alongside The Old Chapel Café and local residents, I explored how creativity might reshape our relationship with that place.

What I Noticed

Rather than defining the bridge by its difficult history, I found stories of resilience, hope and connection already present within the community. The bridge gradually became a symbol of transition, recovery and shared ownership.

My Response

Through photography, songwriting, participatory image-making and conversation, I processed my own experience of the bridge. The people, stories and creativity I encountered became woven into an evolving artistic response, resulting in a collective expression rooted in that place.

What Was Created

Collaborative artwork • Community bunting • Original song • Photography • Participatory workshops • Public exhibition • Collective archive

Song to offer lyrics for What do you hope for over the Bridge of Hope?

Exploring encouragement, belonging and human worth.

The Place

Developed with The Light College, local residents, and Holy Trinity Blacon.

Beginning with Attention

Through conversations with participants, we became aware of how often people spoke about encouragement, relationships and the need to feel valued, and the specific language they used.

I became interested in whether an artwork could create an experience of affirmation rather than simply represent the idea.

Making

We explored different possibilities, including a film and a street mural. Through discussion and making, the installation gradually emerged as the form that felt most appropriate.

The wooden tiles became small physical voices of encouragement, carrying messages gathered from the community and inviting people to encounter them as they walked through the space.

What Emerged

The Walk of Affirmation became both an artwork and an experience: a space where people could encounter words of encouragement and feel, even briefly, seen, valued and affirmed.

Moments of Capture

Walk of Affirmation installation • Community participation • Public exhibition

The tiles carried messages such as “I am enough”, “Well done!”, “You’re amazing” and “Thanks for being you”.