Walls On Walls is a creative community engagement collective founded by Laurie Nouchka and Tullis Rennie.
We believe creativity is a powerful tool for connection and change.
Our work begins with listening: to people; to the places they live, work, and participate; to the challenges they face; to the ideas they have.
Through a social arts practice that is fundamentally collaborative and participatory, our work facilitates spaces where communities can gather, imagine, and create together.
From grassroots initiatives to commissioned public installations and community research, each project is rooted in the belief that connections shaped through exploratory artistic methods of engagement are transformative. Collective creativity and opportunities to express how we feel affects how we relate to ourselves, to one another, and to the spaces in which we gather together as a community.
Since 2015, Walls On Walls has facilitated creative action in over a dozen site-specific locations, from housing estates to public spaces. Projects have been developed in partnership with Camden Council, the V&A Museum, and City, University of London, with additional support from Arts Council England, the Big Lottery Fund, hClub London, and UAL Central Saint Martins.
We approach each project as a co-creative partnership with the communities who live there, the organisations who hold responsibility for change, and with the multi-disciplinary creatives who help shape the work.
Our practice is rooted in listening. We believe that meaningful engagement begins when people feel heard, when their ideas are respected, and when lived experiences form the foundation for what comes next.
From conception and design through to creation and activity, each project explores evolving local identities and environments alongside the true experts: the people who know an area.
These multi-authored explorations, and sometimes resulting artworks, become frameworks for collective social action, where individual expressions - through sound, visual, and other media - interweave to articulate the broader socio-political contexts from which they emerge.
The works are springboards for further conversation and local community action. They create a culture of inclusion, engagement, and solidarity amongst residents and, as such, provide templates and models for collective working and shared leadership beyond the scope of the projects.
As a practice-research activity Walls On Walls understand that outcomes with the greatest impact are not the artworks themselves, but rather the socially engaged process of creating them – involving exploratory play, experimentation, and social interaction.
The long-lasting value for community cohesion and individual well-being reach far beyond the individual artworks.
This work:
Supports creative development. Individually and collectively.
Develops an awareness about local heritage and stimulates ideas for future changes from participants
Supports community cohesion
Increases collective pride in an area
Engages residents and local community groups in the study of art, aesthetics, place and identity
Supports physical and cultural activity within an area
Promotes long term, neighbourhood connection and collective agency over decision making