Hope as Infrastructure – Two Years of Space-Place-Making

Over the past two years I’ve been developing something that began as a hunch and has now grown into a methodology: space-place-making. It has evolved rapidly and so has my understanding of how to use programming, partnerships and public events as the connective tissue across the big challenges of our time.

The motto of the Durham Miners’ Association - “The past we inherit, the future we build” - has become the unofficial philosophy behind space-place-making. And I’ve come to believe that in the UK we are exceptionally good at the first part … and far less confident about the second.

UK’s Hidden Space Strength

As a relative newcomer to the space sector, I’ve been genuinely shocked to learn that the UK is one of the most advanced nations in the world in space technology and research. It’s the kind of achievement you’d expect to dominate national conversation yet it barely registers.

There is a real and urgent gap in how we share this story with the public, who are actively looking for credible sources of good news.

Light Years

Our LightYears programme (part of the Into the Light Place Partnership) has been the testing ground for what space-place-making can be. A studio-style approach generating many different projects, designed to reach many different kinds of people. And here’s what I’ve realised:

Culture is one of (if not the only) tools we have that can connect our biggest agendas (cohesion, productivity, anti-poverty, STEM skills, belonging, sustainability, even defence) in a human, civic and emotionally resonant way.

Culture is where strategy meets people.

Credible Optimism

When we launched Light Years, the world looked different. Since then, a heavy sense of uncertainty has settled across the UK.

Against that backdrop, we’ve spent two years meeting 63,000 people in-person, collaborating with 190 creatives, over 100 scientists, across 25 locations and 100+ events. A standout moment was an art installation at the Durham Miners’ Gala, attended by around 200,000 people, exploring the future of asteroid mining (I’m telling you people loved it).

I assumed a “space-y, arty” project would be of interest the public. What I didn’t anticipate was the depth of hunger - from artists, scientists and communities alike - for believable, positive visions of the future. Not Pollyanna dreams, but credible stories of progress and connection.

Do Look Up

Space is symbolic. It points us upwards and forwards. It invites speculation about the future of humanity. Space-place-making uses that symbolic power to rekindle optimism and civic imagination. Not as escapism, but as civic responsibility.

It helps us imagine what it would feel like if things actually turned out to be okay. Optimism as infrastructure.

Unexpected Trajectories

Over these two years, new opportunities have opened up.

Through our partnerships with Durham University Space Research Centre (SPARC) and Space North East England, we’re now working with partners in space technology, promoting new career routes and helping address the STEM skills gap. Culture has a vital role in broadening who feels these futures belong to them.

We’ve also found ourselves part of the conversation about the new defence epoch for the UK and Europe. For “culture types” like myself, there’s often an instinctive aversion to anything military (I started my career in an agitprop theatre company during the bad old days of the War on Terror).

But the world has changed, and the defence of our home is more fragile than we like to admit. Defence (including space-based defence) must now become, as Fiona Hill calls it, a "whole-of-society" conversation. And culture can open that conversation to everyone.

A Quiet Shift in My Own Outlook

Space-place-making has changed my own thinking. I am now more hopeful (genuinely!) about the UK, and especially about the North East, where I live and work, and where so much new opportunity is being realised.

The past is ours to inherit. But the future must be built. Deliberately, collaboratively, imaginatively.

Space-place-making is simply one way to help us start.