Manifesto for the Alleys
Project: 9ft in Common, a Manifesto for the Alleys
My Role: Project Producer
Duration: January 2024 - January 2025
Contracted by: Starling Start & Studio Idir Consortium
Funder: Belfast 2024 / Belfast City Council
Images above by Simon Mills at the Alley au Parc walk 2022
9ft in Common: A Manifesto for the Alleys was a large-scale, collaborative exploration of Belfast’s alleyways led by 9ft in Common creative leads Amberlea Neely (Starling Start) and Aisling Rusk (studio idir). I was delighted to be part of the core team as the project producer, working with various partners to make things happen over 2024 including alley gatherings, open calls, exhibitions, a documentary film and much much more - some of my personal highlights and reflections are below.
Here is a short overview of a really rich an multi-layered project:
(a manifesto for the alleys) invited us to reconsider the possibilities hidden just beyond our back gates. Over the course of a year, aligned with the Celtic seasons, we commissioned creative responses, hosted inquiries, and held gatherings in and for alleys across the city. This was done in partnership with a wide range of collaborators: artists, designers, growers, neighbours, geographers, activists, ecologists, architects, researchers, and more.
The resulting manifesto—developed through years of dialogue by 9ft in Common and designed and printed by Soft Fiction Projects —contains nine key principles. These principles reflect and mobilize the intentions, hopes, and wishes of the people of Belfast for the alleys behind their homes and throughout the city.
During our fieldwork and mapping research (as part of the Allez Alley programme), we discovered that 7% of Belfast’s alleyways already show signs of growing projects or social interaction.
The manifesto envisions the untapped potential of the remaining 93% -asking Belfast; if we adopt the Manifesto and occupy the alleys, what new spaces, friends and connections will we find along the way?
A Manifesto for the Alleys set of limited edition set of 9 risograph prints.
Developed through years of dialogue by 9ft in Common and designed and printed by Soft Fiction Projects - the full manifesto appears on the back and each key point joins to form the Belfast Alley Map.
Some of my favourite bits included
working with Simon Mills to beautifully document our activities and produce the 9ft in Common Film.
hosting the manifesto launch at the Ulster Museum and processioning thorough Botanic Gardens & Wildflower Alley as the storm blew in, manifesto’s on placards
Going on a study trip to Manchester and checking out their alleys!
listening to a very intimate alleyway Wisper Project performance by Joshua Burnside with his neighbours for Bealtaine (in May)
All the times I got to hang out with and learn about growing stuff from Jo at Laurelbank Farm
Getting Claire and Karen of Red Earth Designs to make 202 symbolic ceramic hagstones, exhibiting them in a derlict art-deco bank, and then seeing people hide and find them across all the alleys in Belfast. pure magic.
working with weaver Emily McIlwaine on her Wild Service alley exhibition and learning lots of intersting ideas from the book of the same name.
taking 10 people on an alley walk in the pouring rain and learning from Wild Belfast, that unmaking parts of our city might just be the best thing we can do for our non-human neighbours.
