Finding wildness in the inner city
Photo by Paul Blakemore
“The chance to being out in the woods, being wild and being creative have been really important to him. It was a chance to connect with other children and be part of something- a collective creative space in which he has learnt to appreciate all his senses and how this feeds the imagination.” Parent of Kitchen Table Photo Club participant.
How do young people in Bristol access nature? Earlier this year, artist Esther May Campbell and the Kitchen Table Photo Club undertook a residency as part of Mayfest called Anything Moving and What Remains, roaming Nightingale Valley in St Anne’s to explore themes of nature, magic, and play, asking what happens when the kids take the lead? The residency highlighted an important tension: how do we ensure that young people growing up in urban areas have the chance to experience untamed, wild spaces? And what happens to that connection as we move closer to the city centre?
When we moved to St Anne’s in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, we immediately felt the contrast between the built-up busy-ness of the city centre and the luscious greenery of our new home at St Anne’s House. Our office looks out onto an escarpment that is home to foxes, squirrels and birds. A short lunchtime walk from our desks and we’re deep in St Anne’s Wood and Nightingale Valley, surrounded by trees and water. And yet we feel the city centre inching closer and closer as the rapid redevelopment of St Philips Marsh continues apace.
This sense of a city on the move is central to Confluence, which explores how Bristol’s city center is evolving and how these changes ripple outward into its neighborhoods. St Anne’s sits at a liminal point – close enough to feel the press of urban redevelopment but still surrounded by nature. Where does the city centre truly begin and end? Who decides its boundaries, and how might these shifting edges reshape how we experience nature, play, and connection?
Bristol is a very green city. Its parks and squares offer respite and escape from the hectic nature of city life. It has wildness at its heart. From Nightingale Valley to Boiling Wells to Leigh Woods on the edge of the Avon Gorge – there are places all across the city to immerse yourself in nature.
But as we move close to the centre of the city, the wildness fades into the background somewhat. In amongst the concrete and brick are neater green spaces – Queen Square, Castle Park – places to stroll rather than run wild, fewer opportunities for discovery – green spaces that feel genteel and managed.
Of course the paradox here is that wildness can’t really be manufactured. It’s disruptive and unpredictable and doesn’t fit easily into a planning framework.
For children growing up in the middle of a major city, having a space on the edges of the inner-city for them to lose themselves feels vital. What are the other ways that we can bring some of the wildness that the kids in the Kitchen Table Photo Club experienced into our green urban spaces?
More wildflower meadows and less neatly cut grass. Places to hide and play. Plants and trees that encourage wildlife to make a home. More places to grow things to eat – orchards, vegetables, and fruits. Community-led temporary wild spaces as sites await redevelopment.
This playful reimagining of the natural/wild spaces in the centre of the city has been part of our work for a long time and continues through Confluence. We’re reminded of Andy Field and Becky Darlington’s show Lookout (Mayfest 2016), where children looked over the city on Brandon Hill and described possible futures. Or French & Mottershead’s Afterlife: Woodland (Mayfest 2015) which invited audience members to think about what happens to their body after death whilst lying on the ground in Leigh Woods. Earlier this year in Mayfest, through Charli Clark and Sylvia Rimat’s Broad Meadow, we saw how the simple introduction of wildflower planters in the middle of Broadmead brought bees and other insects back into that largely concrete environment almost immediately.
As Bristol’s center continues to change, we’re reminded that wildness – disruptive and unpredictable – offers something profound, especially for children. The work of the Kitchen Table Photo Club invites us to imagine what’s possible: playful green spaces in the heart of the city, where young people can rediscover magic, mystery, and the untamed.
If you want to see what they’ve been up to, come along to St Anne’s House between 5–13 December to see their work as part of an exhibition. And maybe afterwards, you can lose yourself in the woods next door…
– Matthew Austin, MAYK