Isla Campbell on an outdoor sculpture exhibition that made her look at streets she walks every day with completely fresh eyes
The High Road Unframed has been up for a couple of weeks now, this outdoor exhibition of large-scale installations by local artists, and I finally went to see it properly rather than just glimpsing pieces of it on my normal commute without stopping.
Why I Kept Putting It Off
Mostly because it’s on streets I walk through constantly, and there’s something about familiar routes that makes you assume you already know everything there is to see, right up until you actually stop and look properly and realise you’ve been walking past genuinely striking work without ever registering it.
The Piece That Actually Stopped Me
A large-scale installation tucked into a bit of the high road I usually walk past without a second glance, something about the scale of it against the ordinary shopfronts around it that made the whole familiar street feel suddenly unfamiliar, like I’d wandered somewhere new despite recognising every single building around it.
Talking To One Of The Artists
I got lucky enough to catch one of the participating artists near their own piece, chatting to a small group about the specific local references built into the work, small details tied to the actual history of the road that I’d genuinely never known despite living two streets away for years without ever asking.
What This Did To My Normal Commute
I’ve now started deliberately taking the slightly longer route just to walk past two more pieces I hadn’t properly stopped for, which is adding about six minutes to my morning but feels entirely worth it for genuinely seeing my own neighbourhood in a completely different light for the first time in ages.
Whether You Should Go
Absolutely, and specifically slow down for it rather than treating it as background scenery, because that’s exactly the trap I nearly fell into myself despite walking past half of it every single day for the past two weeks without ever truly looking properly.