Background
This discussion paper arises from a collaboration between Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design (CSM), part of the University of the Arts London, and Speakers’ Corner Trust (SCT).

CSM has produced some of the most important artists, designers and performers over the last 150 years and has become one of the largest providers of art and design education in the world. Alumni have created iconic designs from the London Routemaster bus and the Chopper bike to Dior fashions.

SCT is a new registered charity which promotes free expression, public debate and active citizenship as a means of revitalising civil society in the UK and supporting its development in emerging democracies.

SCT pursues its aims by forming local Speakers’ Corner Committees made up of representatives of the public, private and voluntary sectors which ‘own’ and steer projects designed to stimulate and support public discussion and debate. As in SCT’s first two projects in Nottingham and Lichfield, the Committees’ work may include establishing new Speakers’ Corners in public spaces as symbols of citizens’ rights, focuses for civic identity and platforms for public engagement.

Between October 2008 and April 2009, Central Saint Martins developed its conceptual thinking about creating or reclaiming spaces for citizenship before applying it to the design of a new Speakers’ Corner prototype. The development of the model and its exhibition in Lichfield and subsequent use at the Global Forum for Freedom of Expression
in Oslo is illustrated on the Speakers’ Corner Trust website at
http://www.speakerscornertrust.org/projects/lichfield/ and
http://www.speakerscornertrust.org/projects/oslo-the-marketplace-of-ideas/.