Traces

The project takes ‘traces’—the materiality of what is incidentally left behind by society in public spaces— as a starting point for young people to speculate about recent activities that could have occurred within their built environments. Traces is set up as a workshop, where different youth groups are invited to find marks and objects that look interesting/unfamiliar/incidental, to then reflect on the question, “What could have happened in my neighbourhood?” The method consists of street exploration and search for traces (chalk), collective speculation, and on-site re-enactments. The film shows the speculative narrative of 20 young people from St. Mary’s Youth Group, Islington, created through three workshop sessions carried out on an adjacent street of the St. Mary’s Neighbourhood Centre. Looking to empower young communities and generate urban engagement, Traces gives free space for young people to have a voice on what is happening around them, through a methodology that aims to visualise how the youth perceive, understand and relate to their urban environments. Fiction is used as a way to reflect on present situations, to critique social and urban systems, and to imagine possible futures from what is to be found.