A photo shot from behind two people sitting on beanbags and looking out across an event scene. They are within a bent-wood structure and shaded with sail cloth. The scene they are looking out on is one of happiness and energy with someone dancing and others chatting. It's a bright day with blue sky and vivid green grass.

Lle Llais – engaging with children and young people to map their island

A photo of the person.
Dr. Rachel Gwenllian Hughes
01/08/2024

This summer, the Public Map Platform team will be working across Ynys Môn finding out how to make community engagement in planning creative and fun. As part of this, our Rural Roaming Room [designed by TV presenter and architect, Piers Taylor] will be the centrepiece of four Lle Llais events. It will be travelling around Ynys Môn engaging children and young people in their spaces and places and giving them a voice in shaping their community’s future through the building of community made maps.

Adapted and applied in a rural setting, Lle Llais draws on the principles of Urban Rooms - a place where people come together to understand, debate, and get involved in the past, present, and future of where they live, work, and play.

Lle Llais started its journey at the Breakwater Country Park in Holyhead in July, with nearly 500 people taking part. It will be at three more locations on the island between now and the end of September.

Check out our events page if you're interested in attending.

Bards, performers, artists, scientists, and researchers will be running daily mapping activities for families, children, and young people. There will also be a creative multi-sensory journey through the landscape – prompting you to stop and listen, to touch, to look, and to smell – to help foster connections between people and nature.

The focal point of Lle Llais is four large architectural looms. Their design has been inspired by the culture, heritage, and landscape of the island. The idea is that they will be adorned by the community – woven with local materials from seaweed to sheep’s wool, and communities’ creative output all of which reflect the stories, memories, and heritage of Ynys Môn.

Lle Llais is part of a major research project, Public Map Platform, led by Cambridge, Cardiff, Wrexham, and Bangor Universities and is part of the Future Observatory – the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In partnership with a range of public, private, and third sector organisations and the local community, its aim is to show that a transparent and trustworthy planning system based on maps made by and for communities is really possible.

Working towards a future that prioritises the wellbeing of people and planet.
Public Map Platform is being led by Cambridge, Cardiff and Wrexham Universities and is part of the Future Observatory - the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition. The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.