Rough Sleepers' interactive guide to Exeter

This is another example of my work in Exeter with homeless centre service users, facilitating a mapping project around participants’ unique perspectives on the city.

Through this work, participants said they hoped to break negative stereotypes associated with homeless people, by showing the public that they were all individuals with different experiences and valuable knowledge of the city.

An open invitation to map Exeter was left on a wall in the common room at Shilhay Hostel, so that residents could add to it over time. Participants labeled places important to them, resulting in a collage of different people’s notes about life in Exeter on one big map.

Next, we created individual guided tours of the city, with suggestions about places to go and indications of things to try, observe or appreciate in the city. The idea was that these guided tours could be taken by the public, or even city officials, offering people the chance to experience Exeter from a homeless person’s perspective.

For more information visit http://www.sarahashfordhart.com/roughsleepers.html