Rewilding the Imagination

The brief

Rewilding the Imagination is a digital project that brings the speeches of the late Nicky Gavron to life through performance. Nicky was a pioneering environmentalist and Labour politician who shaped London for over sixty years. She served as Deputy Mayor from 2000 to 2008, co-founded the C40 Cities climate initiative, and was a tireless advocate for sustainable transport, affordable housing and community development. Between 1997 and 2021 she delivered close to a thousand speeches. Each one was crafted to celebrate, persuade, inspire and drive change.

The project was conceived by Richard Derecki. Together with Katie Machin, he approached Jacksons Lane with a simple but powerful idea: cast young actors to read a curated selection of Nicky’s speeches, film the performances, and give her words a permanent home online. Jacksons Lane is the Highgate arts centre Nicky co-founded in the 1970s, and the place where her own activism began.

This is a sister project to The Story of LPAC. Like that site, it draws on Nicky’s archive (now housed at the London Archive) to ensure her ideas keep doing the work she set them to do.

The challenge

This was a different kind of archive project. Rather than presenting documents, the site needed to present performance. It had to honour both the original speeches and the young actors giving voice to them.

Foregrounding film and performance Video and stills from Pick Static Films sit at the heart of the site, so the design needed to let that work breathe rather than crowding it.

Two parallel ways in Visitors arrive for different reasons. Some come to watch the performances. Some come to read the original speeches. Others want to learn about Nicky. The structure had to make all three routes feel like the front door.

Honouring the speakers as well as the speeches Each performance is credited to the young actor who delivered it. That meant designing performer pages and credits that gave the cast real visibility, not a footnote.

Telling a life as well as showcasing an archive A timeline of Nicky's six decades of activism needed to sit alongside the speeches. It had to give newcomers context without overwhelming returning visitors.

The approach

We began by mapping the four core strands the site needed to hold: the performances, the speeches, Nicky’s story, and the making-of section featuring the team of archivists, filmmakers, actors and theatre-makers behind the project.

On the content and structure side, we:

Built dedicated templates for performances, with the film at the top and the original speech text below
Created a browsable speeches archive that can be read independently of the performances
Designed an illustrated timeline charting Nicky’s life from Haringey councillor to climate advocate
Gave the Making Of its own section, so the team behind the films is visible and credited

On the design and build side, we:

Kept the visual language calm and typographic, letting Pick Static Films’ cinematography lead
Built flexible WordPress templates so new performances can be added easily as more films are produced
Made sure performer credits and biographies were a first-class part of the design
Connected the site visually and narratively to The Story of LPAC, so the two projects read as companion tributes

The outcome

The Rewilding the Imagination site closes a circle. Nicky co-founded Jacksons Lane half a century ago. Her words now return there in the voices of a generation she never met.

For visitors, the site makes it possible to:

Watch curated performances of Nicky’s speeches by young actors at Jacksons Lane
Read the original speeches in full alongside the films
Follow Nicky’s life and activism through an illustrated timeline
Meet the filmmakers, theatre-makers, archivists and performers who brought the project to life

In June 2026, Jacksons Lane hosted a screening of the films. The audience included Nicky’s family and friends, London Society Chair Leanne Tritton, project lead Richard Derecki, and the actors and their families. Reflecting on the evening, Leanne wrote:

“The issues she spoke about, the challenges she identified and the values she championed still resonate today. It was a powerful reminder that whilst individuals may leave us, great ideas endure.”

That, in the end, is what the site is for.