Over the last few years On Site Projects has engaged in ongoing dialogue with the Council to open up the Waterfront Development to a wider range of participants and voices.

With an opportunity to realise work for the Dundee Commons Festival a pilot project to use the waterfront hoardings was negotiated. To realise the project On Site Projects joined forces with Nomas*Projects to create three thematic exhibitions.

This curatorial collaboration – a new and ambitious project for the city – makes visible what might otherwise remain invisible and raises a voice at once poetic and political. It does so based on the premise that civic space is democratic space and that democratic spaces is a forum for contrasting world-views and voices.

The first exhibition was realised by Owen Daily in response to his work with PACE. The exhibition, entitled ‘City as Archive’, reflected on the experience of disenfranchised young people through the established visual languages of power, including heraldry, land ownership, and the city’s rich naval history.

The second exhibition was a timely meditation on the work of Dundee Urban Orchard and the city’s wider economy. It showed a series of shadow figures, mirrored and walking towards one another. The figures held spades and forks aloft. But what was their purpose? Where where were they walking? And why weren’t they carrying the familiar DUO apple tree?

A third exhibition is now underway by students on DJCAD’s MFA Art, Society and Publics. The work asks two questions: ‘What does Dundee’s regeneration mean to you?’ And ‘What does regeneration mean to your city?’ The students have built in a social media component inviting people to share their thoughts and join the conversation.

To get involved visit their Facebook Page or find them on Twitter using the hashtag #dundeeandthewaterfront

To find out more about future exhibition or to get involved please contact Jonathan Baxter at jb4change@gmail.com. All enquiries are welcome.