Sidewalk Ballet guest

We talk a great deal in this work about activation, footfall, vibrancy, the visible markers of a place doing well. We talk rather less about safety in its older, bodily sense, about whether a person can arrive somewhere and feel their guard come down. What a place feels like when your nervous system trusts it is not something we ask often enough.

I spent some time with Chip on The Sidewalk Ballet thinking through exactly this. The conversation moved across the evolution of placemaking, how it is understood and as often misunderstood, and into the ground that trauma-informed practice is beginning to open up. If places can help us feel safe, they can also do the opposite, and that puts a responsibility on those of us who shape them that we do not always name.

We talked about belonging and care, about the stories our environments carry whether we intend them to or not, and about memory, language and creative participation as part of how healing happens in public space rather than only in private. It is the territory Dr Anita McKeown and I set out in 'Trauma-Informed Placemaking', and much of the conversation returns to a single idea I keep coming back to: that the conditions for a place to work are usually already present in the people who use it, and the task is to make room for that rather than to impose something from outside.

You can listen here: https://www.sidewalkballet.com/episodes/cara

I would be glad to hear where it lands with others working in and on place.

#MakingMeaningOfPlacemaking #Placemaking #TraumaInformedPlacemaking #PublicRealm #SidewalkBallet