Urban Hosts’ 10th Anniversary

Urban Hosts is a practice-centred, public programme that provokes and promotes alternatives, to how we currently govern and live in cities. For the last 10 years the programme has been exploring, how the design of conversational formats and the art of hosting, can scaffold and support, imagining, collective and equitable urban futures.

Celebrating the programmes 10th anniversary, on the 16th Oct 2023, programme director Professor of City Futures, Teresa Dillon, in partnership with Grounding Technologies and the DCRC, hosted an evening of talks and happenings at the old M&S building, now called Sparks, in Bristol, Broadmead. Focusing on the question of designing mass participative actions for urban, social and environmental change.

Invited speakers included: Designer, facilitator and researcher, Claire Mellier, who discussed the strengths and limitations of citizens’ assemblies as participatory, deliberative strategies for climate action. Creative Director and co-founder of Trigger, Angie Bual, shared the companies approach to community engagement and how its informed their large-scale public art works. Film maker, activist and co-founder of Tactical Tech, Marek Tuszynski reflected on over two decades of creating critical interventions about technology and its impact on society.

Moderated by Professor Dillon, the evening opened up a season of Urban Hosts events, plus brought together the Grounding Technologies network members.