I attended the Royal Society of Art’s Traveling Pantry workshop today in Glasgow designed by Fellows Tessy Britton and David Gauntlett to test whether giving ideas, methods and tools to small groups of people can encourage them to start new community projects. This post shares what we created in one of the workshops when Tessy provided us with an asset mapping tool.
As a little bit of a description before hand, assets mapping means looking at your surroundings using a different perspective, allowing you to see your environment in a different way. For example in L.A. where there are lots of orchards, a lot of the fruit on the trees overhangs the orchard boundaries, falling onto the pavement, which = waste. So people are regularly getting together to go fruit picking (legally), making jam and sharing it with everyone involved. Tessy described this as a lightweight opportunity for people to connect. Getting different people together in their communities to share their time and knowledge, make connections and get something out of the activity for themselves.
In the workshop we had a go at assets mapping an area in our local community. Our group chose Maryhill.
Bits and pieces used to create the map.
Ideas of things that could be mapped.
The mapping process.
Our asset map of Maryhill (an area of Glasgow).
What I really liked about our groups approach was that we chose not to draw the streets or street names. We approached it by identifying particular buildings, open areas, areas to play, meet people and the people we knew in the area that were real catalysts or connectors between others in the community. Some of the assets we chose to add in were empty shops and derelict spaces; assets than can turn into opportunities.
However my favourite bit of this task was when we started to map where people connect up naturally. The two local primary schools in Maryhill have closed down, so parents meet at the bus stops that take their children to school in the morning, rather than the school gates (2). Also we were aware that the council would like to build a bridge over the canal and the locals are not keen on the idea, so we placed groups of people with lightening symbols next to them around the canal to represent this unease or friction (1).
Things that I think are of particular interest in our map of Maryhill and of relevance to the output when using this tool.
I found this task created deeper conversations than we may have had, had we not worked through the asset landscape in terms of buildings, places, people, movement and emotions. It was also useful to learn about other people’s perspectives on the area as each person at the table had a different type and depth of knowledge. More interesting would be doing this piece of work with people in communities to see what they consider assets and to think about how these could be used in different ways, or to connecting people who have different assets together, to strengthen and build on what already exists in communities.
great post…love the tool!
and great to see it all come to fruition, you finally blogged… and stuck with it!
well done.
Keep up the good work!
*lisax
Gayle
Love this post. The photographs really bring the experience alive. This instantly reminds me of the Sand Tray tool and process that we were introduced to at the original Idea Factory in San Francisco. And funnily also reminds me of Higher Geography (back in the distant 70s) when we got to do human geography projects around ‘spheres of influence’. Maybe now spheres of confluence???
I’d love to find ways us bringing a tool like this into our work.
As you say, i think it’s a fab way of stimulating new conversations – deeper, wider, silent, visual, creative, convergent and divergent. I think it supports them all.
And a big sheet of white paper is way more portable than a sand tray!
Thank you!
Excellent write up of what was a very interesting and informative event. The mapping exercise was a fascinating one – in my group we looked at Drumchapel, which one member of the group was familiar with and others less so. It was intriguing to watch the map unfold – at first it appeared to fulfil the stereotype of a socially deprived commuity, with few resources, virtually no connections and numerous problems identified. However, as the exercise progressed, the natural wealth of the community started to appear, in terms of people, places and resources. This was inspiring initself, and would havebeen even more successful I think if it had involved a greater number of people from that community, who would have identified resources we were unaware of.
On an additional note, excellent blog and I look forward to reading and learning over the coming months.
JC
Gail, this is a very handy write-up of a really useful process. The NHS are getting interested in ‘health assets’ (at long last!
) and I would be pretty sure ‘asset mapping’ tools and techniques will be a need, if they want to turn aspiration into practical action with communities of location, interest, issue, etc etc.
I was just about to start looking for the Flickr stream for the Travelling Pantry, to scrounge some photos from there to use to explain to people what it’s about (asset mapping). So it was a real bonus to come across your post and discover not only photos but also an accompanying explanation already created!
Thanks for taking the trouble – it’s going to be really helpful.
ATB
P
Thanks Peter,
Sorry for the long time taken to approve – just getting back into my blog at the moment and found your comment – need to get email updates organised ; )
Hope it’s helpful – let me know if so and who with and encourage them to comment too – really keen to know how other people may be using this tool.
Gayle