‘Research in Place’ residency: Save Soanes Research and Advocacy Team

14 May 2025

We are excited to welcome the Save Soanes Research and Advocacy Team as the first ‘Research in Place’ residency at We Made That.

Emerging from the grassroots Save Soanes campaign in Tower Hamlets, the collective brings together a powerful coalition of community advocates, youth workers, artists, built environment professionals, and policy experts to protect the at-risk community centre. Their residency project will explore the urgent and overlapping themes of displacement, spatial justice, and the future of community infrastructure, using the campaign to preserve the Soanes Centre as a live case study.

This is the first research residency at our London studio as part of our ‘Right to Place’ initiative. Throughout 2025, residencies will offer researchers dedicated time and space to advance their independent work on themes of rights, spatial justice, cities and regeneration. We’re providing this opportunity to deepen enquiry, exchange ideas, and contribute to critical discussions on spatial justice.

Save Soanes Research and Advocacy Team’s selection follows an incredibly energising open call process, which drew over 40 applications from an inspiring range of individuals and collectives — spanning activists, academics, experienced practitioners, social scientists, urban researchers, historians and more. The sheer diversity of perspectives, practices, and proposals made this a very tough decision. We’re so grateful to everyone who applied and shared their work with us.

The Save Soanes Research and Advocacy team stood out with a thoughtful, grounded and imaginative proposal rooted in their ongoing campaign to protect the Soanes Centre, a space of ecological, educational and intergenerational importance in Tower Hamlets. Their project explores urgent spatial justice themes including the displacement of social infrastructure, belonging, and youth-led activism. It’s driven by both lived experience and a commitment to long-term, collective change.

“We were inspired by the Save Soanes Research and Advocacy Team’s proposal, rooted in soft activism and grounded in the need to protect intergenerational spaces for play and learning. Their community-driven approach resonated deeply with our ethos at We Made That and the clarity of their outcomes and alignment with ‘Right to Place’ stood out. We’re excited to support and collaborate with them over the coming months.”

Niharika Basoae, Studio and Impact Coordinator We Made That

Over the next three months, the team will use the studio space to create a public-facing archive to deliver their ongoing research and contribute to our collective dialogue around spatial justice. We look forward to this residency as a shared journey — one that brings co-learning, collaboration and mutual inspiration.

Sarah Goldzweig and Rhea Martin, part of the Save Soanes Research and Advocacy Team

“In our fight for a secure lease for the Soanes Centre, we’ve observed the impact of systemic neglect and managed decline on both the physical fabric of the building, and the ability of its community to plan for the future. We are excited that We Made That have chosen to support the Save Soanes campaign through the residency, which we will use as a space to archive and reflect on the campaign and the work of the Soanes Centre, and experiment with workshops opening up conversations about its future. We also look forward to conversations with the We Made That team on the links between politics, policy and community campaigning.”

Rhea Martin, Save Soanes Research and Advocacy Team

We’re excited to see how this inaugural residency helps shape new relationships between research, practice and place. Watch this space for more.