Manchester Histories case study
Challenge
Manchester Histories is a charity focused on community collaboration to reveal, share and celebrate Greater Manchester’s diverse histories and heritage.
As part of The University of Manchester’s Collaboration Labs programme, our Associate Research Consultants were tasked with creating a toolkit to enable best practice collaboration and co-creation between archivists, artists and community groups, maximising the potential of historic collections in bringing archives and hidden histories to life through the production of public works in Greater Manchester.
Objectives
1. Research co-creative processes that include art practice, heritage collections and archives.
2. Explore the challenges faced by artists and archivists in the process of creating co-production projects that bring histories to life, through focus group discussions.
3. Develop a toolkit that:
a. Facilitates discussion around challenges and solutions that partners might experience in the collaborative process.
b. Provides guides to working with archives for artists and community groups by incorporating experiences and best practice from similar co-production projects.
c. Assists the project initiators and leads, to communicate with project stakeholders and maximise the impact of historic collections in public works.
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Approach
1. Conduct a review of the literature to gain detailed understanding of the research and learning from other projects which are relevant for the toolkit.
2. Collect qualitative data through focus groups, interviews and an online survey with different stakeholders. Conduct qualitative analyses to learn about the co-creation processes.
3. Develop a model toolkit using the research outputs to create video and written content.
4. Identify and appraise the options for an online platform for the toolkit.
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Impact
This project created valuable evidence-based assets for Manchester Histories to maximise the success, value and impact of future projects involving co-creation and historic collections. The project outputs did not only increase knowledge and capability within Manchester Histories but also facilitated ongoing learning amongst its collaborators which includes other organisations, artists, archivists and members of the community.
Code-Switch supported the delivery of this project as part of The University of Manchester’s Collaboration Labs programme. This programme was funded by the ESRC NPIF Accelerating Business Collaborations account.
Our Associate Research Consultants:
Anna Balazs, PhD Researcher in Social Anthropology, University of Manchester
See Anna’s LinkedIn profile
Euan Winton, PhD Researcher in Design Dementia, Lancaster University
See Euan’s LinkedIn profile
Hanna Steyne, PhD Researcher in Archaeology, University of Manchester
See Hanna’s LinkedIn profile
Jessica Mancuso, PhD Researcher in Sociology, University of Manchester
See Jessica’s LinkedIn profile
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In partnership with
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