Celebrating Our Gurnos: Cross-pollination

Cross-pollination with the Open University and Glass-House Community Led Design

As part the ongoing collaboration with teams at Open University and Glass-House Community Led Design as part of their their knowledge exchange research project Cross-pollination: Growing cross-sector design collaboration in placemaking, I joined them in Wales where they had been collaborating with the Creu Cyffro Community Renewal Funded. They were focussing on an area called The Gurnos in Merthyr Tydfil, one of the largest estates in the Europe when it was expanded in the 1970s. From an earlier workshop they decided on an open day with free activities, Celebrating Our Gurnos, spread out across the neighbourhood to encourage the community to interact with the different green spaces available.

I spoke with residents, the schools resident artist Adam Griffiths, Julia David from Open University Wales, local councillor Lee Davies, Ross Williams from Merthyr Valley Homes and Hannah Hughs from Healthy Hillsides - all stakeholders looking to support the community. Gurnos has not always had positive representation in the media, and I found many people were reluctant to talk on camera about their community. Those who did however, spoke with fierce pride of the brilliant people and community spirit there was, and hoped for more investment in the area, particularly around jobs. I would have loved to spend more time there to properly understand the complexities of the community, and look forward to seeing the outcomes of these new partnerships built during the cross-pollination process.

The work was completed as part of a Knowledge Exchange project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) Place Programme, led by The Open University and The Glass-House Community Led Design.