I was recently involved in some audience development work for Gallery Oldham, helping to inspire new audiences for their natural history collection. I particularly enjoyed creating an eye-catching flyer to encourage people with no prior interest in the subject to attend regular discussion sessions.
Last week I was lucky to be one of 24 students attending an Oral History Spring School at the Institute for Historical Research, the University of London. It was an intense few days, jam-packed with interesting case studies, ethical questions and differing approaches to collection and analysis. I really enjoyed meeting people from all walks of life – including sociologists, artists, historians and academics – employing the medium of oral history to inspire and further their work. (In particular Paul Thompson, the founding father of Oral History.) The course has renewed my enthusiasm for a subject that’s fascinated me since I was an undergraduate. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to work on OH projects about a huge range of subjects including Sheffield’s cutlery industry, migration, Yemeni heritage, Salford Quays, military memories, artist’s lives and race relations. Here’s to many more!
I’ve been working with Peggy Mulongo from the University of Salford to develop research for her PhD in mental health nursing. Peggy has worked for NESTAC for years, helping to deliver the Gateway refugee resettlement programme. She wanted to understand the successes and failures of the programme from a young person’s perspective, using a creative approach to consultation. Peggy and I devised a series of workshops to gather information from representatives of the Somali, Congalese, Bhutanese and Senegalese communities in Rochdale and Bolton. Activities included mapping positive and negative experiences, creating a timeline and an expressive piece of work. It was an enlightening experience and I learnt a lot along the way. Lots of luck to Peggy as she begins writing up…
I’ve just spent the most fantastic afternoon with young women from Ananna and their mothers. To celebrate International Women’s Week we created life-size portraits on the theme of ‘Strong Manchester Women’ using paint and collage materials. It was so much fun and the results were brilliant, as you can see!
The Legacy of Ahmed project that I’ve been managing for the last 18 months has just been awarded ‘runner up’ in the Manchester BME Network awards, heritage category. Partners of the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust, MRSN came first. Partners, Ananna also scooped first prize in the Arts section, so a brilliant night all round!
On Saturday, I facilitated a workshop to engage young people from the Manchester Bangladeshi Women’s Organisation with the Legacy of Ahmed project. After a look at some posters from the Race Relations Resource Centre archive and an interesting discussion about their own experiences of racism participants produced some amazing posters. Thanks to staff at Longsight Library and to artists Jo Ford and Natalie Linney for leading the screen printing class. Thanks too to Archives+ for funding the activity.
I learnt about Ahmed and the courageous initiatives of his family. It made me think how we ‘evolved’ today and that we should always make others aware of racism. Teenage participant
The best day of my life! Amelia, age 5
For the past few weeks I’ve been sourcing, adapting and embellishing children’s dressing up costumes for a forthcoming exhibition at Gallery Oldham. ‘Watercolours from the Lees Collection’ features some of the Gallery’s most treasured artworks and runs from 19th Nov 2016 to 15th April 2017.
