Henbury

Henbury An evaluative document about my visits to Henbury.

By Fanny Wacklin Nilsson Level 1 BA(Hons) Graphic Design at UWE, Bristol 1

When I went to Henbury the first time I arrived at Crow Lane, Henbury’s high street where you can find: a Cooperative store, Island, a few take away restaurants, a betting agency, a hairdresser, a charity shop, a garden store, and a newsagents.

Even though I arrived at midday there were still quite a lot of people out on the street doing their shopping or simply hanging out. Opposite the shops there is a small green space and soon after, residential houses. Next to Crow Lane there is a park called Blaze with a playground area and a skate park. Blaze ties most of Henbury together and gives the area a bit of a green oasis where people come to play, walk their dogs and socialise. Henbury has one more Cooperative food store and a post office; there is also a 2

library, schools, a church, a youth centre and various kinds of clubs where people meet and socialise.

Crow Lane [Henbury high street]

[Vien’s House Take Away (closed) Simply Pizza Take Away Greggs Funeral Service Gigg’s Hair & Beauty St Peter’s Hospice Carms Cuts Lloyds Pharmacy Lea’s (optician) Bargain Beer Andel’s café (closed) Martin’s Henbury Pet & Garden Crow Lane Newsagent Cooperative Pound shop Henbury Fruit & Flowers Island Pizza & Kebab Take Away Fish & Chips shop Betting Agent]

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a strong community I had never heard about Henbury before visiting and I did not really know what to expect. Talking to the residents has given me a good understanding of the area. Some report problems with violence, alcohol and drugs and it may not be seen as the safest area of Bristol. However I do find that there seem to be a strong community where people know each other quite well and you help your neighbours when needed.

Of course it is hard for me to judge how the area truly is but I have tried to represent it as fair as possible. What struck me when talking to people was that they usually started off by talking badly and later change their approach by saying why they actually liked the area. A lot of them have lived in Henbury their whole lives and felt 4

very strongly for the area in one way or another. It could be about how the area could be improved, the existing community spirit or the large green space that Henbury has.

people know each other quite well To gain this understanding of Henbury I spent several hours there spread over a couple of days. I tried to see as much as I could and talk to as many people as possible. Walking around with a camera and a sound recorder to document people’s opinions and experiences of Henbury was something which I really enjoyed doing. I got the chance to meet a range of people from various ages and with different backgrounds.

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"we're born & bred here & that is the way it is. this is where we've been brought up so we like it the way it is, innit?"

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Even though I heard a lot of bad stories I did not want to focus on it since I figured that Henbury has already got enough of a bad reputation.

To portray the area in a bad manner would only upset people To portray the area in a bad manner would only upset people as well as make people even less respectful towards Henbury.

Therefore, I focused on the positive aspects of what the residents had said and designed an A2 sized poster conveying that. Using large type I wanted to grab people’s attention and make the residents of Henbury more aware of the qualities their neighbourhood has.

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Two weeks after I first came to Henbury I went back to place my poster in situ. I did this with the hope of being able to engage people and to start a debate and discussion. When arriving at my location I realised that it might not be as easy as I had expected it to be.

People are harder to engage than I had expected and a lot of them did not seem to be interested or were in a hurry. I did however manage to put up my poster at two locations. The first day I put one up on Crow Lane and received mixed responses.

I drew attention to myself when putting it up, overhearing conversations about the poster and what it said. I did not want to disturb people in the beginning but rather observe what was happening around the poster. After a while I started to engage with the audience to be able to hear more in depth what people thought about it. Some agreed with what it said, some didn’t, but they did 8

think that the message was clear and legible.

I left my poster to come back the next day only to find that someone had taken it down. Quite disappointed I tried looking for it in the bins nearby without any luck. Unable to know if a random person or an authority had discarded it or if something else had happened to it I decided to put up a new one.

[Henbury Wednesday 30.03.2011 at 4.16pm]

[Henbury Thursday 31.03.2011 at 3.05pm] 9

“I think there is a lot of bad press about Henbury so it is good to have something good for once.�

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This time I asked in the fruit and vegetable store at Crow Lane if I could display my poster in the shop’s window. The man who owns the store, who remembered me from two weeks ago, was happy to help and put it up for me. I interviewed both him and people coming in to the store as well as others passing by the shop. The responses I received were mostly positive and they agreed with the message.

Perhaps the poster was not as eye-catching as it could have been. Some of them suggested adding more colour or pictures to make it stand out more.

“It is quite clear innit? It is straight forward.”

“Yeah, I suppose I agree with what it says.

Could it be improved in anyway? Pictures, colours, underlining words.”

“It is not that I don’t like it, no sorry. It is just very plain. Perhaps if you put a bit... If it had a colour it would stand out more. But who am ?”

“Well, I looked at it so it caught my attention so that’s a bonus. I don’t normally. Actually, I really quite liked it because it was very plain and ehm.

Yes I did actually like it because I don’t like too much, you know, fluffy stuff around the side. I like it, you know, just things to the point.”

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In retrospect I think that I did not place the poster in the best location. In the shopping window there were already a lot of A4 coloured papers put up advertising specific offers on the fruit and vegetables, which my poster had to compete with. When people go shopping they do also tend to only look for what need to buy and notice less of the surroundings. Another element of why it was hard to document people’s reaction without direct asking them was that you couldn’t interact with the poster. Therefore I

what they like the best about Henbury. The idea is then to send it to friends, family or neighbours to spread positive aspects of the area further. I went back to test out my idea and I managed to get people engaged and write their opinions on the cards. The idea of sending them out did not work quite as I thought and I did not have the resources to give away as many postcards as I wanted to. Instead I put them up in a specific place and I asked people to write on them.

Since it is easier to print small postcards than

“I love the old parts of Henbury” decided to extend what I had already done and make something that would be interactive. I created a set of 4 postcards with designs taken from the poster. On the back of the postcard I intended for people to write

A2 posters I could print out a few and leave them in different locations in Henbury. Hopefully they will get noticed and perhaps, change people’s views.

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Hello Fanny, Thank you for your e-mail.

“If you’d like to give a brief report of your findings I will try and set it up for you at our next Community Council meeting” Regards Paul Thompson Henbury/Brentry Community Council

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My hope is now that I could get the council interested and that they could help me to spread the postcards and/ or the poster even more.

By getting them involved I could spread my message and it could affect more people than I have managed to talk to so far. At present I have started an email contact with the council and hopefully that could lead to something in the future.

However how it turns out, I have learned a lot by doing this project. Firstly I have got to know a new part of Bristol and talked to people I would not normally speak to. Secondly I have realised that it is harder to intrigue the general public and engage them than I thought it was. I have come to understand that it is crucial that you get to know your target audience and test your ideas and designs to be able to produce relevant work.

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A research based project carried out in the spring of 2011 during three weeks.

By Fanny Wacklin Nilsson.

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