Safe Streets, a project with MATT+FIONA

GOSH Arts wanted to bring attention to these changes in a creative way to help make sure that everyone who visits Great Ormond Street and our neighbouring streets keeps themselves and each other safe.

We were excited to invite MATT+FIONA, an award-winning social enterprise that asks young people how their built environment might be improved and empowers them to bring that vision to life, to lead this project. The aim was to draw attention to the changes and make sure that children and young people from the local community were engaged in the early-stage discussions on what could be done, above and beyond the statutory requirements, to help them feel safe during this period of change.

The project had two parts. The first was creating bespoke Traffic Marshal clothing for our colleagues at Sisk to wear and the second was the creation of a series of posters displayed in shops, hospital buildings and homes along the construction route to encourage people to move and drive safely and with extra awareness through the streets.

To create the designs for the Traffic Marshal clothing MATT+FIONA and their team worked with children attending Coram Fields and Holborn Community Association’s summer holiday programmes. The children looked at warning and danger motifs found in graphic design and nature and inspired by these created individual designs for the Traffic Marshal’s vests, jackets, and trousers. Following the workshop all their ideas were brought together to create a unique design which adorns the Sisk Traffic Marshal’s uniform, a first of its kind in the construction world!

The posters were developed in collaboration with the GOSH Young People’s Forum and with patients on the wards. During group and one to one workshops the children and young people created patterns, inspired by standard road markings, but which experimented with scale, typography and form to create distinct designs which the MATT+FIONA team translated into a series of twelve individual posters, which can be found displayed in buildings along the construction route.

Many thanks to all the young people who contributed to this project and helped shape the beautiful clothing and artwork now ‘on display’ along Lambs Conduit Street, Great Ormond Street, and Boswell Street. Make sure you ‘LOOK’ out and go ‘SLOW’!