Histories of Women’s Place-making in Birmingham

We have been working to create inclusive practices for planning and the redevelopments of Digbeth and the city.

A landscape image of two people, turned towards each other as if in conversation, stood behind a trestle table covered in papers and documents. Behind the two figures is a grey wall with large posters evenly spaced scross it. The posters are dense with written and visual information, and look like museum information boards. — ‘Women In the Centre’, Walk and Exhibition, Grand Union, Birmingham. Image by Debbie Humphry, 2023.

Women’s (other) needs are often ignored in the city and their struggles for the spaces and places they need are bypassed or forgotten. In August 2023 we collaborated with Spaces of Hope/People’s Plans research project to discover the hidden histories of women-led activisms in the city.

We screened the film ‘From Paradise Circus’ (1988. Dir. Heather Powell.) that was produced by Birmingham Film & Video Workshop Production. We also installed a temporary exhibition and hosted a walk and discussion. The walk emerged from women sharing their histories and more recent activisms of community-led planning and place-making in Birmingham from the 1970s onwards. On this walk, we invited participants to hear and share stories about fighting for a women- and child-friendly city, safe and accessible to all.

Still from Heather Powell’s film ‘Paradise Circus’ (1988).

In August 2025 we further collaborated with City Journal to host two brilliant fringe events for Royal Geographic Society conference, building on our research and collaborative work in community-led planning, including a city walk and a talk here at Grand Union.

At both the talk and the walk we heard from Jude Bloomfield, Tonia Clark and Polly Feather from Birmingham for People’s Women’s Group, who created credible campaigns to ensure that city centre regeneration schemes took into consideration the needs of people without cars, and with wheelchairs, walking aids, pushchairs and young children. We heard how the mostly male city planners hadn’t considered how step-less access, good public transport, lighting and free-to-use toilets, would mean people – especially women, children, disabled and older people – could navigate the city more easily.

We are deeply inspired by their inventive campaigns that were able to effect policy change. People-centred urban regeneration is at the heart of our collaborations with Digbeth Access Group, coming soon Four Actions for Digbeth and work on our capital project Junction Works.

A landscape image of a large group of people standing outside in Birmingham City Centre. A clear blue sky is visible behind the skyline which features the tall cylinder of the Rotunda building and the jagged brick wall of the Odeon cinema. — City Walk with Birmingham for People’s Women’s Group, August 2025.

Further information

Generously Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Grant Ref: AH/T00729X/1

This project is a collaboration between Bertz Associates, Spaces of Hope/People’s Plans and Grand Union Gallery. Contact: d.humphry@brookes.ac.uk for more.