Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?

Pop Up Outdoor Seating & Audio Interactive Exhibition at Wyatt’s View, Riverside, St Anne’s, Bristol.

St Anne’s has a rich and varied history - full of stories from medieval pilgrims, sea-bound sailors, candle makers to factory workers. More recently St Anne’s Village, its local shops, businesses and new community hub at St Anne’s House.

We are interested in the chance social encounters we share when we sit next to a stranger. Whether sharing a bench, sitting next to each other on the bus… the opening line - “excuse me, is anyone sitting here” - has the potential to begin a conversation that enriches your day or simply the pleasant exchange of a smile. Covid has gotten in the way of this. As things slowly start to return to normal, we want to explore what we have missed and what we want in the future.

We built an interactive exhibition and temporary seating on the riverside at St Anne’s Village (by the river between the Coop and the bridge), to explore historic and current stories of meeting strangers and the potential of this somewhat forgotten and underutilised space. Visitors came and left their own stories, learned new ones or simply took a seat by the river, ate lunch, had a rest and enjoyed the view.

The exhibition ran from 10am-3pm Friday 25th to Sunday 27th March. The project was funded by the Welcome Back Fund and supported by Bristol City Council. It was designed and produced with Sarah Hollingworth from Architecture00, supported by Bricks and fabrication part-produced by Tammy Crawford-Rolt.