Canning Docks: diverse communities, shared ethos

Our challenge

How might we work with local creative partners and the museum to build common ground and develop diverse ways of coming together?

Waterfront transformation

The Canning Dock project is the first phase of a larger cycle of transformation across the waterfront. This public realm project, driven by the National Museums Liverpool, reactivates a site intrinsically connected to the slavery and maritime histories of the city — a site of memory, legacy and lived experience that reaches in to the city and out into the wider world.

From trauma to healing

By drawing on Liverpool’s rich legacies of story making, activism, relationship-building and belonging, the site is transforming into a place of welcome, contemplation, healing and representation. It will connect people to places, animate hidden histories, create memorable experiences and become a platform for creative response from the people of Liverpool and beyond.

Building equitable relationships

In this project the process is as essential as the final outcome. Narrative Threads worked as engagement consultants within a wider creative team comprised of designers (Asif Khan Studio, Theaster Gates and The Place Bureau), museologists (International Slavery Museum, Maritime Museum and Museum of Liverpool) and local arts groups (20 Stories High, Squash and Writing on the Wall).

Together we explored mutually supportive co-production methods and building equitable and meaningful relationships along the way, resulting in a dynamic framework for telling and making stories.

Output

Engagement and narrative principles fed into the architectural design process.