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| The Project: With Our Ears to the Ground is a PerceptionAREA project which explores the increasingly diverse county of Hertfordshire, comprising of 11 boroughs and home to over 1 million people. Hertfordshire County Council's Strategic Partnerships Unit wanted to deliver a county-wide project to inform a new Community Cohesion Strategy for the county that would complement and explore in more detail the findings of existing surveys about how well people get on with each other in the community and why. The Council's Strategic Partnerships Unit commissioned a PerceptionAREA project to achieve this, and Haring Woods Studio worked in partnership with representatives from Hertfordshire County Council, North Hertfordshire District Council, Stevenage Borough Council and Watford Borough Council. |
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The Idea: Haring Woods worked with artists group Proboscis to develop the project and engage members of the community in these areas between August and October 09. Proboscis are an artist-led studio that seeks to place artistic processes in new contexts and their projects include research, publications, symposia, residencies, artworks and creative tools that bring new perspectives. They brought their Anarchaeology approach, to informally and creatively excavate layers of meaning and understanding using innovative and inclusive methodologies to work with people. This information is then utilised in creative ways to produce artworks, installations, books, films and architectural constructions that address a variety of social and cultural issues.
Pages from the With Our Ears to the Ground book by Probocis |
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The Work: During Autumn 2009, Alice Angus and Orlagh Woods of Proboscis travelled around Hertfordshire meeting over 280 people from Watford, Stevenage, rural North Hertfordshire and the commuter areas of Broxbourne. They put their ears to the ground and got to know Hertfordshire and its communities through the stories of its people. They met people between the ages of 5 and 94, from many cultures and backgrounds, from small organisations, schools, community groups, urban centres and rural villages, and researched towns and villages and travelled through the county in cars, trains, by cycle and on foot. They talked to people in groups, individually, in pubs, cafes, community centres, libraries, at home and at work. They gathered opinions and experiences of communities, asking what it’s like living in their neighbourhoods and what gives them a sense of belonging. Their enduring experience of this journey has been of the generosity of the people, the ambition of their ideas and the determination and commitment they devote to building their communities. Their research will be presented on the project website and in an exciting publication that draws together the multiple layers of ideas and experiences they found across different communities. It is designed to reflect those voices and details the ideas, visions and suggestions of local people for supporting strong communities, and identifies six key themes that join the different areas of the county together. The publication will be available in local Hertfordshire libraries and as a set of Diffusion eBooks to download and make up from the project website.
 
Sample spreads from the With Our Ears to the Ground Book which allows for the information and voices to be layers in a number of different combinations |
Download an online version of the book here >>
Vist With Our Ears to the Ground blog >>
View further images from With Our Ears to the Ground here >>
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The Results: This work builds upon previous consultation carried out by Hertfordshire County Council with the community through traditional surveys about how well different people get on with each other. This publication is being presented to the community, Council Members and Project Team and will be used to inform the Hertfordshire Forward Community Cohesion strategy, the Hertfordshire County Council Single Equalities Scheme, as well as future policies in this area. This will support the partners to build stronger communities where people feel valued, get along well together and feel they belong.
All photographs by Proboscis 2009 and all drawings by Alice Angus 2009
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