Between the Stops

Audience: General

Language: English

‘Between the Stops’ collects the poetry and photography of a citywide project that placed creative work into the everyday journeys of Portsmouth. Rather than hanging in a gallery, the work appeared across the city’s bus infrastructure, where people could encounter words and images in passing as they went about their ordinary travel.

The project takes its themes from the transport network that carries it: movement, pause and connection. Poems circulated on buses across the city through the early months of the year, followed by a series of photographic works responding to the theme of the journey. A pop-up exhibition of photography, spoken word and art in transit ran at The Hard Interchange in Portsmouth alongside the wider display.

The book brings together contributions from around seventy poets and twelve photographers connected to Portsmouth in many different ways, from first-time writers to long-established practitioners. Contributors include Denise Bennett, Tessa Foley, Alison Habens, Maggie Sawkins, William Sutton and Alex Grehy among the poets, and Tobiloba Ajimuda, Phil Jackson, Divyesh Parmar, David Perkins and Kirsty Spicer among the photographers, alongside work from community groups including the Seekers Social Travel Club.

Published as Portsmouth marked 100 years since being granted city status, ‘Between the Stops’ opened the Portsmouth100 celebrations by using shared public infrastructure to carry creative voices through the streets that connect the city. It stands as a record of a project that treated the bus stop and the bus window as exhibition spaces, and as an anthology of a city describing itself in its own words and pictures.

ISBN: 9781806059850

About the Contributors

City Arts Portsmouth CIC is a community interest company based in Portsmouth that brings people together through creativity, collaboration and accessible cultural experiences. Its work spans exhibitions, workshops, artist development, mentoring, public art, socially prescribed creative activities and large-scale events including POSE Portsmouth Open Studios.

The organisation works on the principle that creativity belongs to everyone, and that people should be able to engage with the arts regardless of age, background, confidence, experience or formal training — recognising equal value in those picking up a paintbrush for the first time and in practitioners with decades behind them. It collaborates with partners including Artecology, Portsmouth Historic Quarter, The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth City Council, schools and community groups on projects exploring wellbeing, identity, heritage, environment and place. ‘Between the Stops’ was supported by Arts Council England.

Find the book at https://www.cityartsportsmouth.com/between-the-stops