Photography by Anna-Rose McChesney
Right to the City
Exploring how women, girls and non-binary people experience safety after dark
Right to the City is a Publica CIC initiative seeking to understand how women, girls and non-binary people experience safety after dark, and create inclusive, accessible and joyful public spaces where they feel like they belong.
Through four Artist-Led Night Walks and a Youth Design Challenge, Publica connected with 328 people across five Wards in the City of London (Farringdon without, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Cornhill and Portsoken), witnessing the inspiring vision, hopes and energy of the next generation of changemakers.
The workshops’ experimental and playful approaches revealed the transformative potential of creativity in reshaping perceptions of safety. Engaging with light, sound, making and collage allowed participants to transform spaces often perceived as unsafe into spaces of belonging and empowerment.
When I first moved to London, I would stand under a streetlight in the hope that would keep me safe until I walked up the courage to walk further. I spent a lot of time standing under streetlights. Somehow, today, following that light around the alleyway suddenly triggered that memory, which I haven’t thought about in a long time. So, it was like a weird thing of my initial reaction being like one of fun and then a kind of more learned memory, a deeper memory of some of these behaviours in the city.
Participant, Let’s Go the Long Way Round
All photography by Anna-Rose McChesney
A Shared Vision
Working with a City-wide network of collaborators, this initiative unites the local intelligence of the City of London communities and cultural partners with the broader reach of institutional stakeholders to create a shared, community-driven vision. Right to the City has worked towards:
1. Improving feelings of safety and belonging for women, girls and gender diverse City of London’s residents, workers and visitors
2. Making the City the first London authority to pilot an ambitious participatory initiative for women’s safety in public spaces and support the City of London Police in their aim to be one of the most inclusive police services in the country.
3. Creating an evidence-based capacity framework for the City of London stakeholders to continue to work together, to feel more knowledgeable about the women, girls and non-binary people they serve, as well as committing to action together.
4. Encouraging and supporting communities and policymakers across the rest of London and the UK to replicate such work through a set of open-access resources, lesson plans and workshop structures.
Videographer: Anna-Rose McChesney
Youth Design Challenge workshop
Artist-Led Night Walks
Out After Dark
Observing the City and Defining Hopes
At the first workshop, a group of women and non-binary people walked Smithfield and Farringdon at night, observing, witnessing and recording their thoughts and experiences. Led by artist Louisa Tan, they transformed what they saw and felt into striking collage posters, mapping their personal experiences of safety, unease, and hope.
Soundscapes for Collective Reflection
In a night walk through the Barbican, led by poet and artist Belinda Zhawi, participants transformed quiet corners, and unfamiliar streets into spaces for collective reflection with sound and poetry. Together, they recorded, wrote and listened, creating a powerful sonic map of their experiences.
Let’s Go The Long Way Round
Reimagining the Alley as a Space for Empowerment
What if the alleyway wasn’t a place to hurry through – but somewhere to take up space? Using light, dance and movement, women and non-binary people transformed the alleyway into a joyful space of empowerment, belonging and visibility with artists Clara Fran and Beth Allen.
The Nightwatch Carnival
A Performative Reclamation of Space
Led by artist María Venegas Raba, participants in the final Right to the City workshop designed fictional characters that embodied how they want to experience public space after dark. They brought those characters to life in a powerful night time parade, moving though the City with joy, laughter and courage.
Photography by Anna-Rose McChesney
Final Celebration
At the final celebration event, we celebrated the bold voices behind the Artist-Led Night Walks and Youth Design Challenge, led by Senior Urban Designer, Gaia Crocella.
Surrounded by collages, soundscapes, maps and masks created during the workshops, we reflected on what this project has achieved – joyful reclamation, belonging, creativity, community, and a call for change.
A selection of collages from the Out After Dark and Youth Design Challenge workshops
We heard directly from several Youth Design Challenge participants and their moving visions for the City. The youngest participant, at 9-years-old, shared her vision for a brighter, more colourful future for children, whilst another powerfully highlighted the patriarchal norms embedded in urban design and called to treat women’s safety in public spaces as a right, not a luxury. Their poster designs and speeches, each recognised for their detail, emotion and imagination, brought a sense of hope to the celebration.
Right to the City showed what is possible when communities come together to reimagine safer and more inclusive cities that truly reflect the people who live in them – especially women, girls and non-binary people.
Being able to collectively reclaim space that I would usually not go to, gave me a whole new feeling for the City and what it means to inhabit a female body.
Participant, The Nightwatch Carnival
Right to the City is supported by:
Primera
Eastern City BID
Fleet Street Quarter BID
Culture Mile BID
Aldgate Connect BID
Cheapside Business Alliance
With thanks to all project collaborators, artists and participants:
Cornhill Ward Councillor
City of London Police
Harshita Patel
Louisa Tan
Belinda Zhawi
Clara Fran
Beth Allen
María Venegas Rabá
Barbican and Golden Lane Neighbourhood Forum
Music in Offices
Holland House
New London Architecture
Museum of London
Barbican
London Metropolitan University
Barbican and Community Libraries
Portsoken Community Centre
Golden Lane Community Centre
Sir Ralph Perring Centre
St Barts Hospital Vital Arts
Safer Business Network
Our Safer City
City of London Crime Prevention Association
City Group Security
The City Belonging Project: Latinos in the City
DSQ
Mulberry School
Haggerston School
Police Cadettes
Society Links
Beaubeaus
