It's Ours, Not Yours!

Over Easter I have been paying more attention to the high-streets and not just the shops, knowing it is the realm where I want my project to grow. Walking around it feels like the majority of the high street is controlled by something bigger than us. Although now and then there is a splash of public intervention, whether that be graffiti or guerrilla knitting, reassuring me 'they' are not completely in control!

I came across a lovely example of 'claiming back the streets' and creating an unseen community in the book Sentient Cities.

Yellow Arrow is a global public art project in New York. Yellow arrow stickers can be obtained from their website and placed anywhere in the public realm. When encountering a sticker on the street, you can send the unique code printed on it as a text message to a particular phone number. Moments later a text message will be received with a message left by the sticker's original owner.

The yellow arrow indicates that that particular spot means something to someone and there is a story to be told about this place. The Yellow stickers have grown, being placed in 467 cities and 35 countries since first appearing on the streets of Manhattan in 2004.