The Highrise Project

The Highrise Project is woman founded CIC run by 2 visual artists, Louise Atkinson and Victoria Kortekaas, and was originally set up to explore the links between architecture and social relations within municipal highrise buildings and council-built estates. The project uses ethnographic and creative research, which is co-produced with residents. Through exploring the history of social housing, our aim is to highlight the stories, benefits, and challenges of living in social housing, as well as related issues, including sense of community, family history, impact on health and wellbeing, class, etc. Our collaboration combines our own experiences of living in social housing, along with our skills and interests in co-producing high quality art with communities. We’re passionate about using art and creativity as a way for people to tell their own stories, as well as enabling them to learn new skills or share existing ones. As the project has grown, so has our mission, and we are now focused on bringing people together to explore ideas of place making and community in general, incorporating ESOL and other forms of support as required to ensure that our workshops are accessible to everyone.