Peeps, Ancoats

Peeps is an artwork by Dan Dubowitz, conceived and implemented in collaboration with the Camlins’ Ancoats public realm team. It is a series of peepholes into hidden spaces, such as a discovered tunnel, a bell tower or a walled-up room in a mill, incorporating the artworks permanently into the fabric of the city as it is rebuilt, making hidden, submerged and latent layers of the area visible again. There are no interpretation panels, signs or guidebooks. This is a subtle artwork that is to be discovered and heard about through word of mouth. It retains elements of mystery and change. No one knows how many peeps there are or where they can be found. It is a celebration of the presence of absence, adding an intriguing dimension to the public realm and intensifying the relationship between the streets and the historically rich buildings that adjoin them.

“Peeps is a response to an environment, a place in transition, a diaspora of community. It is a project about place making. It is a civic work for civic spaces in the hope that the project might contribute to the public spaces; the streets becoming civic spaces that mediate relationships between people and place and that a new community with a sense of ownership and belonging might emerge.”

Blueprint

Client

New East Manchester

Date

2007 to 2009

Team

Dan Dubowitz, artist