‘Space Placemaking’ for County Durham in 2024!
Street Cosmos Director, Ged Matthews, proposes an ambitious Space Placemaking campaign to add rocket fuel to exciting spacetech developments.
20 December 2023
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County Durham is poised to go supernova in the emerging UK spacetech industry, part of a wider national ‘sci-tech superpower’ strategy.
This will be building on a solid foundation of business development at NET Park in Sedgefield, research at Durham University’s Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics and many exciting developments across the North-East of England.
We are now three months into our project ‘Street Cosmos’ which aims to connect all these future-forging developments with under-served communities who – if we aren’t careful – might get left out. What is already clear is that there is ravenous appetite in communities to be more involved in ‘space’, plus a large skills challenge to service the new industries that, if not solved, could limit ambitions.
I believe ‘cultural placemaking’ can play a crucial role in connecting parallel agendas in this space, and give them some rocket fuel (I apologise for the many space puns). These types of people-based placemaking campaigns can be the connective tissue between the huge amounts of groups (institutions, communities, government, industry) required to make a spacetech revolution happen. Such dynamic campaigns can get everyone hyped and launch-ready.
I’ve begun using the phrase ‘space placemaking’ (and I’ve been using it a lot the past few weeks).
County Durham has a 1300-year history with space science. From the Venerable Bede’s early musings on gravity, Thomas Wright’s proto-observatory near Bishop Auckland, Temple Chevallier work on sunspots – up to Durham University’s work on the NASA James Webb Space Telescope, and the creation of the new Space North East England this year.
The northern revolution in spacetech is part of a long lineage. Space placemaking can make it feel like it’s a continuation of the proud industrial heritage of the region, and not an alien spaceship landing in the middle of County Durham.
The term Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) can be quite useful here. The North-East was a major player in 1IR (water/steam-power) and 2IR (mass production) but missed out on 3IR (silicon). For 4IR the region can get back into orbit, using the world class universities on our doorstep to be more responsible to climate and people.
As well as connecting the public to stimulating education, employment and training opportunities, space placemaking could generate a lot more societal and cultural benefits. Perhaps akin to a mini ‘Space Age’ that took place in the USA in the 1950’s and 60’s which had an enormous impact on STEM education, the arts, general productivity, social pride, sense of empowerment and aspiration.
Alongside obvious partners like schools, further/higher education and skills training providers, a space placemaking approach can find new ways to incorporate civic and inclusive economy strategies, as well as include community development organisations and grassroots 3rd sector groups, who have been holding a lot of our de-industrialised places together.
Street Cosmos is a large county-wide partnership across Durham University, No More Nowt (Peterlee), Blackhall Community Centre, Gaunless Gateway (Bishop Auckland), TCR Hub (Barnard Castle) and many more. It’s funded by the Museums’ Association / UKRI through there excellent Mindsets + Missions programme.
Over the Christmas period we have been running a series of family events across the region to get people excited about the growing CubeSat (next gen nanosatellites) industry, entitled ‘Santallites’ (sorry not sorry). I stupidly thought that getting kids enthusiastic about spacetech would be a hard sell and we would have to piggyback off the supernova-hot excitement for Christmas. But I was wrong and there is enormous interest from people from all walks of life.
I suppose this should come as no surprise as seven out of ten of the highest- grossing movies from the last decade have had strong science fiction themes. When you ask a schoolkid “would you like to work in the space industry when you grow up?” They look at you like you asked them “do you like Christmas?”
All the tools, components, fuel are here. Space placemaking can help assemble the parts (and make it fun!).
2024 is going to be an exhilarating year.
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Get Involved
We’d love to hear from you! If you are a community member who’d like to bring Street Museum to your neighbourhood, or a cultural, arts or science organisation looking to connect with your communities in a direct way, a technology company with a relevant new product, or you’re just interested and want to know more – just drop Ged a line on [email protected].