GRANTON CIVICSCOPE was a project conducted by independent researcher and designer Darren Umney and the architectural photographer Simon Phipps in collaboration with Liz McFall. Civicscope uses photographic, digital and archival resources to witness the city, its architectures and its voices evolve through time and space. It combines planning documents, maps and community archive with original photographic and photorealistic mapping in a multi-perspectival panoramic exhibition of the Granton Waterfront Redevelopment Area in North Edinburgh. Structured as a bi-directional leporello, Civicscope unfolds horizontally and vertically, in a tour of archival, virtual, idealised and community views of the area. The result is a kind of survey that references the precepts of the two best known Edinburgh town planners, Patrick Abercrombie and Patrick Geddes and recognises the challenges and contradictions of modern planning and consultation methods.
Civicscope also features several original short films of iconic sites including the Granton Gasholder, Martello Court, Muirhouse shopping centre and Ainslie Park High School and made using Google Earth that can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/@areweawed8955/videos.
The project was featured at Seeing North Edinburgh through the eyes of the internet, an event at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre.
