I’m Sabre Majid, an artist born and raised in Milton Keynes. Despite its rich design heritage, the city is often overlooked or misunderstood, which inspired me to launch Urban Narratives of Milton Keynes (UNoMK). It’s a project dedicated to educating, inspiring, and shining a positive light on my hometown.
UNoMK showcases the city’s unique identity through visual arts, focusing on the original 20th century architecture and how that has shaped more recent developments. My main goal is to make the built environment accessible and enjoyable for everyone. I bring this vision to life through annual community programming, including exhibitions, talks, school workshops for all ages, and guided photo walks that combine architectural history with creative practice.
The photo walks are a relaxed way for people to explore the city's architecture at a slow pace. By pairing my insights into the built environment with photography, participants become much more present, giving them a chance to experience new perspectives. I’ve noticed that most people are drawn to capturing our sheltered pathways, underpasses, and the sharp edges of buildings. Interestingly, their framing almost always feature greenery.
My work is deeply influenced by 10 years in architectural design, which gives me an understanding for spatial dynamics. Photography has been a part of my practise for over 15 years, starting as a resource to my studies and later becoming a personal outlet. Social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube were the initial spaces where I could share my work and experiment different forms of visual mediums with a camera.
I felt no one was capturing the architectural landscape of Milton Keynes, with clear focus on the original New Town design through modern photography and film. I decided to take on the challenge, creating work that feels authentic, personal, and valuable to the local community. Moving beyond digital platforms, to curate physical exhibitions, opened up new possibilities for creative, hands on programming. As Milton Keynes evolves, UNoMK serves as a contemporary response to the city’s original New Town heritage, celebrating its place as a thriving New City.
decided to take on the challenge, creating work that feels authentic, personal, and valuable to the local community.
After building my profile through self funded exhibitions and local commissions, Central Milton Keynes Parish Council invited me to launch the digital gallery at Hotel La Tour’s rooftop space, See:MK. Titled ‘The Luxury of Space', the exhibition uses multiple screen layouts to showcase CMK’s modernist architecture, green boulevards, underpasses, and pedestrian pathways.
The exhibition features three distinct works: - Listed Elements of CMK: An interactive eight screen slideshow pairing my photography with historical archives to showcase five listed landmarks. - Between Spaces: A panoramic four-screen film created with Beatrice Ní Bhroin, blending community voices with iconic architectural sites. - Vistas Up City: A six screen ceiling installation tracing a west to east visual journey, reflecting how the matured landscape playfully screens and reveals the city’s design.
The response has been really positive. We filled two viewing days featuring talks and introducing the project to many new faces.
The response has been really positive. We filled two viewing days featuring talks and introducing the project to many new faces. As my 10th exhibition, it’s a rewarding moment and exciting to engage people with such a niche topic. The exhibition is free to visit with no tickets required and runs until 11th November.
Beatrice Ní Bhroin attended one of my exhibitions at the Central Library, where she really connected with my work and the concept of showcasing MK’s built environment. When an opportunity came up to produce a film together for the MK Fringe Festival, it gave us the perfect chance to collaborate. Her background in TV directing was invaluable as she brought a narrative weaving real people's personal stories and emotional connections with iconic local buildings. As two passionate residents who deeply value the city’s architectural identity, we’re likely to collaborate on future projects.
For me, pure cinema is about capturing the unfiltered reality of the city using deliberate visual techniques. I approach cinematography by framing Milton Keynes as a living set, using a traditional 24fps film frame rate to achieve natural motion blur. To bring stationary architecture to life, I combine elegant camera movements with contextual establishing shots from varied angles. I also rely on perspective correction so subjects feel grounded at eye level, and I time my shoots around key hours of the day, using the sun as a natural spotlight to carve out the depth, form, and texture of the built environment.
Milton Keynes was designed by the MK Development Corporation with incredible detail, from infrastructure to individual plots. What draws me in is its accessibility: moving fluidly via grid roads, five minute walks to bus stops, and dedicated walking and cycling networks. Built 60 years ago on farmland by a young, ambitious team, its innovation for a future city are reenvisioned today within aspects and technology like well being, safety, and automation.
Growing up here shaped my daily life and career path, has given me a unique perspective on placemaking. Without MK's pioneering model, its identity of expansive green spaces, low density, and seamless transit would have been lost to high rises and fragmented urban planning. As local creatives step up to shape the city's evolving culture, I plan to be a part of that future.
Over the years, Milton Keynes has seen the loss of key architecture and several venues left abandoned. While the city is evolving, development hasn't progressed as quickly as I expected. The original vision favoured low rise architecture, but there's a growing appetite for taller buildings to accommodate higher density. Though several high rises have been approved around the city centre specifically, construction has been slow to follow. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing taller developments clustered around the business district near the station. However, keeping the eastern side near Campbell Park low rise would preserve our unique identity as a low density city. Hotel La Tour is a fourteen story block, but its reflective cladding sensitively blends into the sky - showing that taller additions can still respect their surroundings when done right.
Milton Keynes was the largest postwar New Town in the UK. The centralised authority allowed it to establish a distinctive unified aesthetic and function that sets it apart from any other place. Achieving city status in 2022 broke traditions. As MK moves forward as a New City, it is crucial that its founding principles are celebrated rather than dismissed as an unsuccessful experiment. That is where UNoMK fits in, using visual arts to raise awareness of this heritage. Looking closely at the city’s early architecture reveals distinctive designs that set high standards. While MK evolves and risks losing this character, archiving these spaces is important, and I feel inspired to own that.
Looking ahead, I want to venture into more abstract mediums, allowing my craft to evolve into new creative forms and collaborative partnerships inspired by the built environment. I envision UNoMK as a lifelong project spanning decades. Archiving the city's controlled quirky architecture will naturally take time. I am also eager to layer more of my own personal story into the work. Drawing comparisons between Milton Keynes and cities in Malaysia, where my family originates, would bring a fascinating, deeply personal dynamic to how I explore space, culture, and urban identity.
Words by: Sabre Majid