Internationally, artist Esther Shalev-Gerz has led the debates regarding participatory art practice for over 25 years. With A Thread she advances her investigations into the complex nature of transition in space and its impact on the transformation of citizens’ identities and their locales and inquires into decision making in neighbourhood renewal.

Shalev-Gerz invited the residents of a complex, peripheral urban housing estate in Glasgow to intervene in the physical development of their area. Ten architectural shelters, created in collaboration with groups of residents, allowed for an artistic reflection on ownership and occupation of public space.

The residents designed canopies for the shelters. The residents chose where the shelters were sited. The residents chose which vistas they would offer others of their ‘challenging’ neighbourhood. And then the canopies disappeared . . .

A Thread encourages us to question our complicated relationships to space and community.

This publication provides legacy for A Thread which was commissioned as part of the Reputations Public Art Programme in 2006.