Local Alternatives
re-imagining urban histories and futures with children and young people
Regenerating urban histories and futures
Local Alternatives re-imagines urban histories and futures under conditions of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ubiquitous technologies. It offers a collaborative platform for co-produced research and engagement across international borders, bringing together children, young people, artists, designers, educators, curators, policymakers, and urban citizens from many walks of life.
Our creative projects are ongoing, open-ended, and led by children and young people's sensory investigations, concerns, and imaginings of their local environments and communities. We are invested in developing more regenerative urban histories and futures through community-led responses to social and environmental challenges. We co-develop and co-produce this work to feed into exhibitions, public programs, curriculum development, publications, heritage projects, policy reports, and international networks.
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our projects
How can young people become makers of urban histories, and what are the implications for cultural and educational institutions?
How can we find new ways to value biocultural actions and relationships with urban places? What new literacies are needed to understand and participate in biocultural value systems?
What is the role of art and design in channeling the forces of change toward more just and regenerative urban futures?
How can we cultivate intergenerational relationships of learning and care in local urban forests?
How can mobile cinematic technologies help us generate more open and pluralistic memories of the city, perhaps even memories of the future?
How can we map the 'carbonscape' of a city, and envision low carbon dwelling places for human and non-human citizens alike?
How can emerging technologies empower young people to navigate climate-responsive futures in education and work?
How do we connect and learn with urban river ecologies on sovereign and unceded Aboriginal lands?
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What is the role of touch in building our connection with more-than-human urban environments and socialities?
How can techniques of improvisation work to suspend and disrupt the institutionally gridded spacetimes of the city?
sensing atmospheres
Manchester
How do atmospheric art and media practices shift the learning potentials of gallery and museum environments?
sensing inheritance
Manchester
How is our sense of natural and cultural inheritance changing in times of climate change, extinction, and ubiquitous technology?
sensing strata
Manchester
How can creative experiments with strata help us sense the many layers of climate change in our everyday lives?
sensing climate
Manchester
How do creative and scientific visualisations of climate data shift our images and imaginings of the Earth?
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sensing time
Manchester
How do we sense local environments through different scales, speeds, and durations of time?
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sensing place
Manchester
How do creative practices open up new possibilities for sensing and belonging in urban parklands?
We are developing an ongoing series of public exhibitions based on work emerging from the Local Alternatives platform.
Our first exhibition, Superpositions, was held at Birley Art Gallery in Manchester in July, 2018.
Remixing Thick Time opened at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester in May, 2019.
Inheriting the Anthropocene opened July 18th, 2019 and ran through March 2020 at the Manchester Museum.
The Sensing Change exhibition opened on May 15th, 2022 at RMIT's Art in Public Gallery
Wild Hope: Conversations for a planetary commons ran from August 15-Sept 30 2023 at RMIT Design Hub Gallery
collaborators
David Rousell (Lead, Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)
Liz de Freitas (Manifold Lab, MMU; Adelphi University, NY)
Michael Gallagher (Manifold Lab, MMU)
Mark Peter Wright (resident artist, MMU)
Laura Trafi-Prats (Manifold Lab, MMU)
Riikka Hohti (University of Helsinki)
Maggie MacLure (Manifold Lab, MMU)
Dan Harris (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)
Kelly Hussey-Smith (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)
Kelly Chan (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) Museums Victoria, Melbourne Museum
Anna Hickey-Moody (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) MPavilion, M_Curators (Melbourne)
Jett Janetzki (M_Curators, Melbourne) CERES Community Environment Park
Mycelium Studios (Melbourne) Andrew Goodman (La Trobe University)
National Gallery of Victoria Michele Stockley (National Gallery of Victoria)
Catharine Cary (RCA, London) Andreia Penaloza Caicedo (Creative Agency, RMIT)
Aviva Endean (independent artist, ArtPlay) Justin Marshall (independent artist, ArtPlay)
Vanessa Chapple (Creative Agency, RMIT) Seth Brown (School of Education, RMIT)
Barking Spider Visual Theatre Company Robyn Cox (School of Education, RMIT)
Collingwood College (K-12 public school) Inner North Learning and Employment Network
Jessica Tran (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) UNEVOC (UNESCO)
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Local Alternatives has been funded through the Creative Agency Lab (RMIT), Design and Creative Practice Enabling Impact Platform (RMIT), the Victorian State Government, the Climate Change Research Network (RMIT), the Manifold Lab (MMU Strategic Opportunities Fund), a Research Accelerator Grant (Research and Knowledge Exchange, MMU), a Researcher Development Fellowship (MMU), Leverhulme Artist in Residence Grant, Säätiöiden Post Doc Pool (Finnish Foundation), and in-kind contributions from Z-arts, the Whitworth Art Gallery, City of Melbourne, ArtPlay, MPavilion, National Gallery of Victoria, Manchester Museum, and Museums Victoria.
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We are also connecting the project internationally through partnerships and exchanges with ITU Copenhagen, Roskilde University, Andromeda Gallery, University of Barcelona, University of British Columbia, the Tapies Centre Barcelona, Cambridge University, UC Santa Cruz, and the SenseLab/3 Ecologies Institute at Concordia University.
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Suzanne Smith (Z-arts)
Z-artists (age 5-15)
Whitworth Young Contemporaries (age 15-25)
Hannah-Lee Chalk (Manchester Museum)
Sally Thelwell (Whitworth Gallery)
Rabia Begum (Whitworth Young Contemporaries)
Jonas Fritsch (ITU, Copenhagen)
Kristine Samson (Roskilde University, Copenhagen)
Signal and ArtPlay (City of Melbourne)
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collaborators
David Rousell (Lead, PLaCE Research Group, RMIT)
Liz de Freitas (Manifold Lab, MMU; Adelphi University, NY)
Michael Gallagher (Manifold Lab, MMU)
Mark Peter Wright (resident artist, MMU)
Laura Trafi-Prats (Manifold Lab, MMU)
Riikka Hohti (University of Helsinki)
Maggie MacLure (Manifold Lab, MMU)
Dan Harris (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT)
Kelly Hussey-Smith (School of Art, RMIT)
Kelly Chan (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) Museums Victoria, Melbourne Museum
Anna Hickey-Moody (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) MPavilion, M_Curators (Melbourne)
Jett Janetzki (M_Curators, Melbourne) CERES Community Environment Park
Mycelium Studios (Melbourne) Andrew Goodman (La Trobe University)
National Gallery of Victoria Michele Stockley (National Gallery of Victoria)
Catharine Cary (RCA, London) Andreia Penaloza Caicedo (Creative Agency, RMIT)
Aviva Endean (independent artist, ArtPlay) Justin Marshall (independent artist, ArtPlay)
Vanessa Chapple (Creative Agency, RMIT) Seth Brown (School of Education, RMIT)
Barking Spider Visual Theatre Company Robyn Cox (School of Education, RMIT)
Collingwood College (K-12 public school) Inner North Learning and Employment Network
Jessica Tran (Creative Agency Lab, RMIT) UNEVOC (UNESCO)
Gideon Boadu (School of Education, RMIT) Meredith Blakeney (Collingwood College)
Emma Kefford (Collingwood College) Jill Mitchell (Museums Victoria)
Julie Carmel (School of Education, RMIT) Centre for Urban Research, RMIT
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) Regenerative Futures Institute, RMIT
Critical Forest Studies Collaboratory Alinta Andrews (Design and Social Context, RMIT)
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Local Alternatives projects have been funded through RMIT Vietnam, City North Activation Fund, Australian Research Council, Creative Agency Lab, Design and Creative Practice Enabling Impact Platform (RMIT), Victorian State Government, Climate Change Research Network, the Manifold Lab (MMU Strategic Opportunities Fund), Research Accelerator Grant (Research and Knowledge Exchange, MMU), Researcher Development Fellowship (MMU), Leverhulme Artist in Residence Grant, Säätiöiden Post Doc Pool (Finnish Foundation), and in-kind contributions from Z-arts, the Whitworth Art Gallery, City of Melbourne, ArtPlay, MPavilion, National Gallery of Victoria, Manchester Museum, and Museums Victoria.
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We are also connecting the project internationally through partnerships and exchanges with ITU Copenhagen, Roskilde University, Andromeda Gallery, University of Barcelona, University of British Columbia, the Tapies Centre Barcelona, Cambridge University, UC Santa Cruz, and the SenseLab/3 Ecologies Institute at Concordia University.
The Local Alternatives collective acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Cultural Custodians of the lands on which we live and work. We pay respect to their elders and ancestors past and present.
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Suzanne Smith (Z-arts)
Z-artists (age 5-15)
Whitworth Young Contemporaries (age 15-25)
Hannah-Lee Chalk (Manchester Museum)
Sally Thelwell (Whitworth Gallery)
Rabia Begum (Whitworth Young Contemporaries)
Jonas Fritsch (ITU, Copenhagen)
Kristine Samson (Roskilde University, Copenhagen)
Signal and ArtPlay (City of Melbourne)
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funding
Contact Us
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RMIT University, City Campus
Digital Ethnography Research Centre, Building 6
124 La Trobe St, Melbourne 3004
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Contact: David Rousell, david.rousell@rmit.edu.au
sensing sound
Manchester
How can we learn to sense and create urban soundscapes as a more-than-human listening body?
sensing feeling
Manchester
How do sensory technologies help us register the felt atmospheres of local places?