A year-long creative project (2021) with community artist Jake Ryan, inviting children across Ellesmere Port to explore what makes themselves, their neighbourhoods and their town wonderfully unique.

About the project

Peculiar Streets began with a simple idea: that children are experts in the places where they live.

Working with community artist Jake Ryan, children from schools across Ellesmere Port were invited to look closely at their streets, homes, families and neighbourhoods – noticing the details, quirks and everyday things that can easily be overlooked. Together, they explored Ellesmere Port as a patchwork of different places, from parks and houses to shops, industry and the little nooks and crannies known best by the people who live there.

Through workshops, drawing, collage and making, children considered what made them and their communities distinctive. They created self-portraits, imagined places, pets, people and local landmarks, celebrating their own peculiarities and the things they loved about where they lived. An important part of the project was thinking about difference with care: recognising that we can celebrate what makes us unique while allowing other people to describe and define themselves.

The children’s ideas and artwork helped inspire Porto’s Peculiar Playground, our summer art trail in Whitby Park. Their observations became part of a playful world of art, installations and performance for families to discover together – turning the park into a celebration of imagination, individuality and Ellesmere Port as seen through children’s eyes.

At its heart, the project asked children to do something they are particularly good at: look closely, stay curious and show us something about a familiar place that adults might have missed.