ColourDesign Journal talks to artist and placemaker Cath Carver of Colour Your City about using colour to transform urban places and spaces in conversation with communities. 

Colour as ordering system

Colour Your City came about as a result of Cath Carver’s own lifelong fascination with colour as a way of understanding and navigating the world.

Carver established her multidisciplinary practice in 2011 and now works with communities, councils, artists and urban design professionals to reimagine city environments with colour. As well as physically transforming places through spatial design and public art, her practice engages people with their city through chromatic research, colour education, cultural programming and creative placemaking.

“I see colour as a portal, a way of connecting people and communities with their city spaces and their own creativity,” she says. “Colour is a way of unlocking vision and imagination to create environments that contribute positively to mood and wellbeing in the city”.

Multi-authored cities

Cities, she points out, are complex, multi-authored networks in need of continual renewal and care to make sure they’re serving the needs of people and enhancing lives. Colour Your City projects have included two murals in Well Street in Hackney, London: a prominent corner facade with artist Camille Walala, and another that embedded the stories of local residents through interactive AR.

A contrasting project is The Cause, a meanwhile-use space that celebrates dance music culture, small independent business and positive mental health. The project transformed a room in the former car mechanics depot in Tottenham, North London into a geometric Tron-like space using fluorescent paint and UV light with artist Antonis Papamichael, bringing wholly new spatial qualities to enhance play and expression. An event series further animated the space with an immersive art installation, fashion and music.

Co-curating with colour

Colour Your City uses colour as a conceptual tool to prompt exploration and enhance creative approaches to urban design. "Our Colour Chat series invites people into a dialogue about colour and the city – uncovering hues and clues that impact on experiences of the urban environment, leading to expansive envisioning,” says Carver. “At community workshops, we work with palettes, colour naming and many other chromatic and creative techniques to delve deep into the power of colour. Participatory approaches help forge community relationships and a greater sense of agency. A lot of people we talk to say that colour sparks positive mood states and makes them smile in the city.”

Carver stresses that colour in urban environments doesn’t need to be restricted to paint and bright hues, that equally colour can be introduced through planting and nature, greening the city and softening it with natural elements like water: “It’s not a crayon-box approach, it’s about honouring a multitude of approaches, combined with sparking new possibilities and imagination, and involving people in the processes that shape their environment”. 

Colour and multi-sensory experience 

COLOURWORXX is a new global colour adventure that aims to elevate the experience of urban life through a multimedia exploration of colour. The initiative started with a show on a London community radio station celebrating colour through sound and interviews, and there’s a magazine and more on the way. “As part of COLOURWORXX, we invite people from different disciplines and walks of life to talk about their personal relationship to colour, exploring perspectives and multi-sensory connections. Like cities, colour shapes people’s lives in so many fundamental ways”.

The first issue of COLOURWORXX magazine will be published later this year. To find out more go to www.colouryourcity.com. You can listen to COLOURWORXX shows on Netil Radio here.