Interactive art project transforming abandoned Wolverhampton spaces

The interactive artwork has been installed across abandoned community spaces in Wolverhampton to encourage people to imagine what their city could become.

OFFSITE 9's project - If We Had This [SPACE] is urging residents to question who is making decisions for them in their local area, and stand up to demand a city that cares for them.

If We Had This [SPACE] has been installed across the nine forgotten spaces with geotags linking to sound pieces created by nine artists.

Nine artists with connections to Wolverhampton and the Black Country have created music, soundscapes, spoken word, and speeches, which people can listen to by scanning the QR code in each location.

These sound pieces explore the social histories of the nine abandoned spaces and encourage the public to interact with them, imagining what was once there and what could be there to serve the community.

People are also encouraged to have a say on what they want their community to become, by writing their hopes for the abandoned space on the black boards underneath the words "if we had this we would ..." at each location.

The artwork will be in Wolverhampton for the duration of the British Art Show 9 (BAS9), a landmark touring exhibition that celebrates the vitality of modern British art.

Asylum Gallery curator Hannah Taylor said: "The sites are all spaces that used to provide community services or were spaces where communities came together and made memories such as youth internet cafes, independent music shops linked to the civic, community art cafes, hospitals and churches.

"None of these are now in use. With such a large tour, BAS9 promises investment both financially and culturally, providing opportunity for increased visitor footfall and hopefully high street regeneration.

"This year it has been stated more than a fifth of commercial units are empty in city centres, with Wolverhampton city centre one of the highest on the list according to the British Retail Consortium.

"BAS9 asks us to consider ways in which we can come together, create communities and provide healing for our reparative histories.

"How is this possible if we still function with a top-down model in relation to access to our central spaces?

"This project not only remembers what was but asks, if you had access to this space, what would you, we do with it? Why aren’t we being asked how our city centres should be used?

"BAS9 brings us many contemporary artists who are trying to provoke us to reconsider our position in regard to how our society responds to crises.

"Considering our local council has recently passed plans to pedestrianise the high street without consulting its local business, resulting in much more than a few independents closing due to decreased footfall, changing car and walking routes and access to the city centre now confusing, is it any wonder we want to provoke new modes of resistance, ways in which to imagine new futures for ourselves in the public realm?"

The nine locations in Wolverhampton are Epic Cafe, KFC (Mike Lloyds Megastore), Wildbytes, Beatties, Darlington Street Church, Chapel Ash Underpass, Whitehart Pub, The Old Eye Hospital and Wulfrunas Well.