How can tours enable us to notice and appreciate our built environment and more fully inhabit the spaces we live in and places we traverse? What is a renegade guide? What makes a tour? Who decides which stories get shared? How can we make tours more inclusive and accessible? Are there other ways we can preserve and share stories of people and places at risk of being lost forever?

Towards the end of 2024, during a highly contentious election season, writer, guide and founder of Living London, Saira Niazi, spent two months in the US developing a research project on tour guiding. Attending various walking tours and community events, exploring hidden gems and local neighbourhoods and interviewing renegade guides, organisers and storytellers from all walks of life, Niazi sought answers to the pressing questions that prompted her journey.

Come along to the launch of the Renegade Guides handbook – a new resource, created with and for guides. The handbook is filled with practical advice, reflections, case studies, stories, ideas and more.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this project!!

Saira Niazi (author) in conversation with Fatuma Khaireh. This event is for renegade guides, socially engaged art practitioners, and those interested in community-centred tours.

The handbook will be free and available to download following the launch. You can also buy a physical copy for £10 or order a copy from my online bookshop soon. This project was funded by the Churchill Fellowship.

Renegade Guides: Handbook Launch