Our Work

Haring Woods has a successful model of creative public consultation and engagement which devises non-confrontational situations to capture the perceptions of targeted individuals and groups about specific issues.  These issues concern equally the social and physical aspects of public spaces. Each consultation is developed in collaboration with the client and project partners to clearly define the objectives, budgets and resources.  The process provides valuable qualitative and quantitative information, supporting traditional consultation and market research methods.

We collaborate with politically astute artists trained in engagement to devise social situations where the community feels confident to express their opinions and ideas with the knowledge that these views will be shared and used to inform change.  The engagement process is monitored by the project team and documented by the artists to produce an art work, usually in the form of a short film, a book or website which can be presented to and shared by the contributors and the clients.

PerceptionAREA has proved especially successful when aimed at engaging the ‘hard to reach/hard to hear’ members of a community, recognising how every member of the community is a vital stakeholder and participant in the democratic decision-making process. 

PerceptionAREA project results have helped to identify savings in expected budgets and to secure significant new funding from partners and public agencies.  The process helps to restore trust in the professionals responsible for decision making and delivery in the public realm.

Over the past 6 years, PerceptionAREA projects have been commissioned in the UK throughout the county of Hertfordshire, by the local and district councils through the Green Heart Partnership initiative and also in Essex and London.