O Fa'ma i fa'ma: a people's map of llandudno

Click here to go on Phil's mis-guided wander in Llandudno

You could browse the map from home or use it on your phone as a guide as you walk around (for this, click on the 'mobile version' once the map loads).

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Phil Smith, known for creating performance walks from Kensington Gardens to rocky North Devon promontories, from long Cornish beaches to Ipswich’s suburbia via Sussex re-wilding sites, created this instant mis-guided tour of a few streets in Llandudno, looking at the secret history of apparently innocent signage, the mysterious journeys of materials and the way that myths are waiting to give meaning to even the most ordinary of places.

On 22nd November, 2017, Phil took 15 of us on this mis-guided tour, as the closing event for my 'O Fa'ma i Fa'ma: A People's Map of Llandudno' residency at Culture Action Llandudno.

Now you can try out this way of experiencing a place.... The wander starts at Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Lady Augusta Mostyn's aspired-for new centre of town, and ends at Y Tabernacl, at the heart of the old town. Time takes some strange twists and turns along the way. You will see some photos of us on the same wander, now added to the sediment of semi-forgotten history of Llandudno.

Phil Smith is a performance-maker, writer and ambulatory researcher, specialising in creating performances related to walking, site-specificity, and counter-tourism. He is a core member of site-based arts collective Wrights & Sites, presently working on a new publication: ‘The Architect-Walker’. He is also developing a ‘common dance for threatened subjectivities’ with choreographer Melanie Kloetzel (Calgary University) and is working as a Site Artist for Tracing the Pathway’s ‘Groundwork’ project in Milton Keynes.Phil’s publications include ‘Anywhere’ (2017), ‘On Walking’ and ‘Enchanted Things’ (2014), ‘Counter-Tourism: The Handbook’ (2012) and ‘Mythogeography’ (2010). He is an Associate Professor (Reader) at Plymouth University.

More about Phil and to see his books: http://www.triarchypress.net/smithereens.html

Go to Phil's map

Click here to go on a tour of people's personal centres with the Canol Llandudno Centre map, a people's guide to the heart of the town. You could browse the map from home or use it on your phone as a guide as you walk around (for this, click on the 'mobile version' once the map loads).

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I'd love to know where is your personal centre of Llandudno on the map! Please let us know where it is and why, together with a picture if you have one. There are some forms you can use below (English/Cymraeg).

Send to lindsey.colbourne@me.com

Centre Designation form

Ffurflen Dynodi'r Canol

What, who, where, when would you say is the heart of Llandudno?

One of the first questions, if not THE first question planners consider when thinking of regenerating towns is ‘where is the town centre’?  But Llandudno doesn’t appear to have a single town centre in the way that other towns do, marked with a cross or clock, usually at some kind of intersection on a high street.

So I started to wonder how a thinking about a town (and its regeneration) might look, if the assumption that everyone knows where the town centre is, and that that centre will be linked to shopping, was dropped: What would people in Llandudno – resident, homeless, visiting or on holiday – nominate as their personal centre of the town?

This map contains the results of those nominations, giving the locations and the reasons for the nominations.

Pictures in this section

These pictures arefrom the Finding the Centre event at Y Tabernacle on Saturday 23rd September. More than 30 designations were made.

There are four walks that explore Llandudno as a place in transition. You could browse the maps from home or use it on your phone as a guide as you walk around (for this, click on the 'mobile version' once the map loads).

Sabine Cockrill - Culture! Action! Llandudno! Sabine describes her work, questions and ideas for arts and culture based regeneration in Llandudno.

Clive Wolfendale - the REAL Llandudno. Clive uses his experience as Conductor of the Town Band, director of CAIS and Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales police (amongst other roles) to make the case for regeneration that doesn't forget who Llandudno really serves...

Trine Moore - graveyards and renewal Some radical thoughts for the future, while taking in St Hilary's Churchyard and Llanrhos Lawn Cemetry

Jane Matthews - Ponderings on Pier and Prom, linking history to now, and a cautionary note on the need for regeneration.

David Owen - a performative return after 45 years [to come]

Some thoughts about Llandudno in transition

Llandudno is a Victorian creation, built by the mighty Flintshire based Mostyn estate to maximise returns on their newly acquired land (secured through ‘allocation’ of common land to the Mostyns following the Enclosure Act). The village that was there, on and nestling in the shadow of the Orme, and the houses on the Morfa, were cleared to make way for a typically Victorian vision: A sea-side resort, bringing fresh sea air to the lungs of visitors from the industrial North West (of England), together with lashings of entertainment.

In many ways this Victorian vision - of making profit from visitor-fuelled activity - still holds a strong grip on the town: stronger certainly than the sandy foundations on which the town was built. There are signs of confidence from the likes of Primark, Premier Inn and Pizza Express, that there is still profit to be made from Llandudno.

And yet there are also signs of cracks appearing in the neoliberal edifice. Some assumptions no longer stand: once mighty buildings stand empty, climate disintegration and sea level rise (and water lapping in people's cellars) put a massive question mark over whether Llandudno will even exist in 10, 20, 50 years. Even the beach is disappearing.

Big business, big developers are seen by many as the only hope: Leave it to the companies to rescue the place (with Mostyn estate as shadowy 'curators' of their creations). Some, like Dillans and Wetherspoons, are restoring and re-purposing buildings, bringing life back into the fabric. Others, like Travelodge and now Premier Inn, are erasing existing buildings before 'recreating' their edifice, with structures that (are meant to) look like the original, but with interiors more suited to modern needs.

This is just more of the same. It is perhaps better than letting things rot, but it is a temporary fix. There are signs among the demographics of people who live here (whether indigenous or incomer), and the people who visit that the town is struggling behind the edifice of "peaceful" "clean" "unspoilt" and "not like Blackpool". People who can make a living here, or who have already made a living, really love Llandudno. But who don't fit into - or who can't profit from the existing economic model, like the homeless, those on low incomes and young people, are increasingly marginalised. They have less and less space.

In our workshop with students at Coleg Llandrillo (see the blog), it was striking just how much their personal maps of Llandudno just focused on shopping. And the (out of town) cinema. A place for old people and seagulls. No-one mentioned it as a place ofcreativity, innovation and dynamism and getting fit for the future: an exciting place to connect with.

And yet there are some glimpses of that sort of energy: Providero, Acme studios, CALL and Llawn. My walk with Sabine Cockerill of CALL, visits sites and places she is thinking about in a new way, re-purposing places like Tedder House and y Tabernacl. My walks with Trine and with Francesca too. And work by people like Brenda Hewitt of Hope Restored at the fringes, building support for homeless people despite the state's best efforts to make life unbearable.

More on this theme to come, I think!

Click here to see the Cenotaph to Selfies map: You could browse the map from home or use it on your phone as a guide as you walk around (for this, click on the 'mobile version' once the map loads).Each point includes information and pictures, and some contain sound files.

Some thoughts

It seems to me that names and signs generally, and monuments most obviously, tell a story of a place. They tell of the past (albeit poignant, increasingly irrelevant or downright inappropriate), the tightly held present with nods to maintaining status quo, indications of things and attitudes in the future...

Wanda Zyborska took me on an odyssey around Llandudno in search of Llandudno's monuments, in particular to find out if there are any monuments to women. The results are surprising, and you can see the results - currently under construction, but you can see the locations and just how many we found, and do your own tour of the Llandudno monuments - on this Monumental Map here

Meanwhile, monuments are very much in the news, many being pulled down through direct action of people who feel they should no-longer have a presence, but also movements to create new ones that counter-balance, rather than erase, injustice/inequality in the past. See for example the success of the recent campaign to site the first monument to a woman in Parliament Square, London (the resulting statue of Millicent Fawcett made by Gillian Wearing).

Who gets to name things? How do monuments and memorialisation  affect us? How could we use them to support a thriving contemporary, cultural experience in a Llandudno fit for the future?

To follow up this work, I have produced a series of 31 cards: Hanes Llanddynes - Llandudno through the story of the women, from 16,000 years ago to the current day. Please get in touch if you’d like a copy, or come to the CALL/Mostyn PROCESSIONS workshops, celebrating the centenary of women’s suffrage.

There are two walks in this section: You could browse the maps from home or use it on your phone as a guide as you walk around (for this, click on the 'mobile version' once the map loads).

Spirited away - a walk around the Orme from Deganwy with Francesca Colussi [currently under construction]

Pondering on the Prom and Pier - a walk in the Shadow of the Orme (in touch with history), with Jane Matthews

Also a sound file of visions by primary school children, featuring the Orme and the elements taking over Llandudno... [TO ADD].

Some reflections

Life in Llandudno started on the Great Orme, and in the shadow of it. St Tudno, caves yr Ogof family. Even today, there is a strong connection. Almost everyone I have spoken and/or walked with has mentioned it as a place to go. They talk in particular of the winds, the winds from the West Shore, winds that pin you to the west-side of the Orme, winds that make a mockery of the balconies on the Grand Hotel.

Original descriptions for siting of Llandudno

Everyone has at least two dog-walking routes

Routes through town depending on wind and rain

Wildflowers - Jenny

Seeing Orme - Reka, just have to have the right clothes

Children's visions

Walk by Lindsey Colbourne

Click here to follow the walk with stages and pictures

or

1.  Start at the Google Centre of Llandudno, 6, Somerset Street. Just type in Llandudno to google maps and it’ll take you there.

You will find yourself between the M&S store(s) and M&S storage and distribution. If you loiter here, you will be asked what you are doing. They seem concerned about spies, but in a friendly way. Look for clues. You may try to deduce why this is the centre. Stan-the-Man’s owner says it was because it used to be the front, before the sea-front buildings came.

2.  Travel South-East-wards along the street. To your right, the rear end of the consumerism of goods. To your left, the back side of the consumerism of leisure. In between, what? Restricted access, peace, hardly anyone passing. Occasionally someone comes out for a cigarette or a lunch break. Houses in transition. Fire escapes. Danger of death. Spot the monsters. No more.

3.  Stop outside Punchinello cottage. Punch and Judy’s family lives here.  Stan-the-Man lives next door. He is very proud of the connection. Stan-the Man moved here from Glasgow because his owner’s daughter "married a welshman and moved to Rhyl. We are old, so we moved too". He says (but I don't know if its true) that the Punch and Judy family is allowed to live at Punchinello on the condition that they continue to keep it as it is. The road is full of other prohibitions, restrictions, conditions. How many can you count?

4.  Stop at the back of the Imperial Hotel. You may be surprised to find no sign to say no stopping. It is fun to stop - and walk - in the road. Car park is strictly for residents. Wait to meet one. If they venture out of the enclave (eg assisted by having Stan-the-Man whom they are very fond of petting), talk with them. Share stories with them of Llandudno. Ask them about their reason for visiting. Stan-the-Man is a great way to meet tourists. Stan’s owner has picked up six different languages from talking to tourists. In how many languages can you say hello? Behind you there is a giant post-box in front of a house. Why so big? How have connections changed over time? You are at the centre of the world here.

5.  Dream scapes and havens on Adelphi Street. Which would be yours? Is exclusion necessary for peace (of mind)? There are signs of transition here, lines and signs no longer stack up. One is covered with a traffic cone. It looks beautifully orange against the blue sky. Things are starting to escape. Even plastic chairs. I wonder where we will be going. And who will be allowed?

6.  Stop at the Troop Café. This used to be a chapel. It reminds me of the chapel built by Italian Prisoners of war in Orkney. Spot the crosses. Look at the pictures inside. Marvel at the empty car park. Or the full one. Or the semi-full one. Contrast to the busy-ness business of the main streets. Stan-the-Man likes to relieve himself on the raised grass here, so his owner doesn’t have to stoop down to bag-and-bin.

7.  Visit the back of Venue Cymru if you wish, then retrace your steps all the way back up the streets, heading North West, past the Google centre. Can you spot Lunch Box Pete? The Tree of Life Project?  Things that people have done to bring the sea back to us? The original conservation area boundary used to run along this street. It was a wiggly line. What would you keep in, and what out?

8.  Continue back along the road (you are still heading North West) to Back South Parade and go round in the circle. Havens here too – gardens and garages and basements. Could you make a movie here? If you go round fast enough you can spin off into your own world… or head off to the sea.

Place, as Cresswell says, is defined in geographic research as "space which people have made meaningful".  Place becomes meaningful through memory, imagination, emotion and feeling, through interaction, familiarity, naming. There can be no 'objective view' of a place: subjective experience and individual history, imagination, values, beliefs all influence what it is. Maps have never been 'objective', they are and have always been produced from a particular 'view point' (literally and metaphorically).

This section shows some mental maps produced by people who came to the finding the centre event on 23 September, and by Coleg Llandrillo Foundation students. Ages range from 6 to 60. Each one deserves a careful study: its interesting to experience their Llandudno, and, if you like, how much it does or does not chime with yours.

I've found, as I've spent more and more time wandering around Llandudno, that these maps are remarkably evocative of the place.

I am also working on my own mental map (s), as a way of finding out where I've got to, in my relationship with Llandudno.

Click here for a map of Temporary Autonomous Action Zones. (currently under construction)

Some thoughts

"An interstitial space or interstice is a space between structures or objects... Interstitial art, any work of art whose basic nature falls between, rather than within, the familiar boundaries of accepted genres or media.... interstitial architecture is an intermediate space located between regular-use floors to allow space for the mechanical systems of the building" Wikipaedia

Edges provide the most creative / productive spaces (eg edge of chaos, edge of beds - in both the vegetable and bed sense, edge of motorways). Llandudno's interstitial spaces are special. Made and used by people on the edge of the 'mainstream', ie not integrated into the neoliberal agenda? There is wisdom here... but it is easy to read it initially as a threat, which just shows how 'the spectacle' has clouded our judgement...

See the blog section for a start on all of this, for my walk with Lisa Hudson (aka The Natural Anarchist), who first introduced the idea to me, when we went off in search of Temporary Action Zones.

Other links:

Why Amazonian forest peoples are 'counter-mapping' their ancestral lands

Great Orme caves sealed off to stop homeless

There are five ways you can add to the mapping:

1. Send in your designation for your personal centre of Llandudno. There's more information on this in the Finding the Centre section. You can download the form to send in English here   Cymraeg yma

2. Get in touch with me, and offer to take me on a journey on your everyday route. Together we'll talk about what we see and experience on the way. Perhaps you'll have some stories or particular issues, ideas, concerns, hopes. You may wish to include naming the route, or renaming particular places along the way. And we'll decide how to document it (if at all) at the end.

2. Send in your walking route to include on the map. This could be a route (or different seasonal routes) you walk your dog, or walk to work, or how you get from a to b, or a tour of places, issues or people important to you.  (CLICK HERE for the route form GYMRAEG YMA). Or send in your ideas for renaming places or routes (CLICK HERE for the re-naming form in English neu YMA AM GYMRAEG). These will be put on the map for others to follow.

4. Upload your own route/map and include (as you wish) images, text, sound, video. To do this, you'll need to use something like https://www.alpacamaps.com/ and then we'll embed your map in this website

5. Come to one of the events - see the calendar

Under construction: I'll be adding links to places, articles, initiatives here