Knowledge to inspire
- 86% of people who take part in cultural projects try things they haven't done before.
- 81% feel that being creative is important to them.
Museums, libraries and archives are gateways to new worlds of knowledge, arts and understanding. Their collections evoke excitement and inspiration. They offer new experiences and opportunities to people of all ages, helping us to understand ourselves and the world around us.
Our institutions offer universal and equal access to knowledge, engaging even hard-to-reach groups and contributing to creativity, innovation and personal development.
Case studies
Working with Mental Health Service Users: "JunKit has given my life that feeling of importance I was lacking"
Loughbrough's Albert Street Resource Service created a museum group for a dozen former mental health services users from the Loughborough community who needed confidence, the experience of using new skills, of working in a team 'a sense of togetherness' - as one of them put it - and a feeling of empowerment. They got it from a pile of rubbish.
The group chose the environment as the theme of the artwork they wanted to make, and created it from trash generated in their own homes and by local industry. They visited the Leicester environmental show-home, Eco House, the recycling centre at Planet Works and Snibston Discovery Park; they saw the What a Waste? display at Loughborough Library, and went on an archaeological field walk locally.
And every Wednesday morning for eight months they gathered to create, with the help of community artists and a community poet, their touring exhibition JunKit, which through 2003 has been touring Leicestershire venues. "Thoughtful, stimulating, full of interesting art that made me look at the world anew," wrote one visitor. "Very inspiring, creative, and fun - great use of all the materials we take for granted." commented another.
But for the team the effect was more profound. Adrian was one of them: "There has been a chance to mix and bond with other people, relax and contribute on an equal basis," he said. "It has taught me some patience in that I am able and prepared to change an idea. I wanted to show myself and the group that I could do it, then to learn that it would be included in an exhibition for all Loughborough to see has given my life that feeling of importance and motivation I was lacking."
The project was funded by Leicestershire's Open Museum, WREN (Waste, Recycling, Environmental Ltd) and Leicestershire's Youth and Community Education Services.
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Torbay Library Services: Computer Sessions in Residential Homes
Torbay Libraries already had a programme of taking deposit collections of books to 80 to 90 residential homes in the borough, run by Inclusion Services Co-ordinator Jennie Crisp. Via a questionnaire about the service, she asked if computer sessions would be something they may like to try.
With a positive response and in partnership with the lottery funded New Pathways programme she set about a timetable of visits. The computer is a great leveller. It can open worlds that have been closed, make connections where there were none, and help acquire skills that can add a new dimension to life.
The scheme, based in Torquay Library, aims to bring the new horizons to older people, people with learning, sensory and mobility difficulties and those in sheltered housing.
It began in 2002 with Arlington Court, where Jennie with the help of an engineer set up a small network with ten desktop computers and guided the residents through a simple programme. In the course of the year they visited 12 residential homes and will be visiting a further 12 this year.
Participants can go on to join further computer sessions in the libraries' new learning suites in each of Torbay's four libraries, or continue with sessions in their residential homes with the help of Community Education who can provide tutored sessions.
"We had a very positive response from the start and we helped people to produce work on the computer - usually a calendar with a photograph of the group at work, because it was something they could keep," said Jennie. "It was for people who'd only ever heard of computers and had mostly never seen one at firsthand. One of the participants was 101 and she was completely committed."
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Knowsley Library Service: Page Moss Writers' Group
Libraries can and do encourage people to read, there's no argument about that. But can they get you to write? Page Moss Library can: ask 73-year-old Jean. "I never thought I'd be going back to school again, but I did. I started creative writing at Page Moss Library. It's amazing what you can do and how much you can get out of it."
She was part of Page Moss Writers' Group which sprang from Vital Link, a project funded by the Wolfson Libraries Challenge and the Culture Department to encourage reading pleasure and develop literacy skills.
Knowsley Library Service joined up with Knowsley Community College to create the self-supportive group which has been meeting every Monday morning for 18 months now, led by a basic skills tutor from the college. It has expanded to include people from across the age range, from a young single mother through to Jean's generation, and they talk about their reading and writing and each other?s experiences, and progress is assessed through self-evaluation and feedback. Several of the members have had poetry published in the regional evening newspaper, the Liverpool Echo, and group members are working on a magazine of their poetry and prose to be accompanied by recording of their work. They plan to link up with Huyton Library's Reading Group.
Apart from an improvement in spelling, punctuation and grammar, and making new friendships, the group writers have become confident performers, some of them having read their poetry at a recent launch of the exhibition Best Bits of Knowsley.
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Reaching Out: Nadia, Manchester Museum
Nadia was a 19-year-old Afghani, disorientated, timid and frightened of an uncertain future in a strange country, when she arrived at Manchester Museum's Telling Our Lives project, which involved women from Iran, the Sudan, Somalia and Bangladesh as well as Afghanistan.
"She had just come from the recent war in Afghanistan and was traumatised," said Bernadette Lynch, leader of the project. Nadia needed to now what life in the West would be like for a young woman like her, and she needed to feel at home. "Building trust with the Afghanis was difficult and meant lots of one-to-one work with the museum?s staff. Nadia was keen to learn and soon became the spokesperson for the Afghani group," Bernadette said.
She went on to be given part-time employment as a translator and co-ordinator on another project, a Wellwoman collaboration with Manchester Art Gallery. She made friends and worked with women of other nationalities, developing her own sense of her new community, and she has now married an Afghani man long settled in Britain.
But on the last day of the Telling Our Lives project, she drew Bernadette close to whisper in her ear: "I want you to know that this has changed my life. I am braver now."
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New Visitors, New Experiences: The Bristol South Asian Textiles Project
For the past two years, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery has arranged special viewings of South Asian textiles for local people from minority ethnic community organisations, parents' groups, and family learning groups. Often the textiles are not usually on display for conservation reasons and the visitors, many of whom came from South Asian backgrounds, expressed a great interest in seeing them. They had a wealth of personal experience and stories relating to the textiles, and other events such as guided tours, and drop-in embroidery and henna sessions were arranged. The project has been a success for many reasons - not only has the number of visitors to the museum from South Asian communities increased, but an Asian embroidery class has being set up by a local South Asian community organisation, and participants felt more comfortable about visiting the museum and have brought their family and friends with them.
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The Black Box Project: Museums for Everyone
Prison inmates, ex-offenders and vulnerable individuals are fully engaged with museums in Sussex , thanks to the ground-breaking Black Box project. Workshops including storytelling, poetry and creative writing sessions are held both in the museums and in Ford Prison, with the result that each participant produces a 'personal museum' based on their experiences. The training of museum and gallery staff and other project partners has been key to the success of the project, and other museums and galleries are being encouraged to work with offenders and other vulnerable groups. Black Box aims to give a voice to those seldom heard and demonstrates that museums can play a role in everyone?s life.
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