Context

This was a collaborative arts programme involving writing and working with children and adults from the local community in mixed groups. The project was devised and coordinated by New Writing North, the literature agency for the North East of England (see http://www.newwritingnorth.com/ for details) and funded by The Heritage Lottery Fund, Museums Libraries and Archives North East, The Foyle Foundation and the North East Regional Museums Hub.

Aims & principles

New Writing North wanted to run a community-based project that encouraged community cohesion and also increased levels of confidence in young and older writers. The focus was on celebrating ‘ordinary people and ordinary lives’ and to look at how writing can be used in different contexts. By placing writers within museum and heritage sites it aimed to enable local children and adults to identify and celebrate their own heritage, stimulated through an inspiring journey of exploring and reflecting creatively on the museum collections.

Exploring literacy and creative writing in the museum environment makes creating a piece of writing more accessible to those who may not normally show an interest in poetry or stories. You do not need to be an avid reader to create a poem inspired by an object in a museum’s collection; you simply need to be aware of and interested in the world around you.

Offering combined creative writing and object handling sessions for school groups provides a unique cross-curricular way of working, giving an opportunity to explore history and literary topics together. By basing literacy work on a museum’s collection, a context for creative writing is established and participants are given a real, factual background to use as a context for their creative work - and a safety net is provided for reluctant writers. The new Primary Framework recognises that children write better when their work is couched in their own experiences; so if they have had the chance to explore a museum and study a collection of objects, they will be able to write about the objects and create stories with more confidence.

Summary

A creative writing, visual arts and heritage project in six museums (The Bailiffgate Museum, the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum, Durham Cathedral, Monkwearmouth Station Museum, Preston Hall Museum and the Museum of Antiquities) across the North East where writers and artists worked with mixed school and community groups in differing sizes.

The project placed a professional writer in each of the partner museums over a four-month period; the writers worked with key members of museum staff and, for the second half of the project, a visual artist to deliver the project. Each residency culminated in an exhibition of creative writing and visual arts in the museum, depicting the museums of participants’ lives. The project encouraged people to consider items from their local museums’ collections and to write about them. Alongside this, they were also asked to imagine what items, stories and moments in time would form the basis of their own personal museum. Participants then went on to create a "mini museum" of their own, using words and personal items to describe their lives. The work was exhibited in the museum alongside the permanent collections.

In Practice

Three schools participated in the project, but within different frameworks, with two working in the school day and one after school. Two of the schools and a group of home-educated pupils and parents varied their base for workshops - some taken in school and some at the museum - and this approach seemed particularly successful for them.  All groups enjoyed having regular access to the heritage buildings and found them to be inspiring places. Each group was assigned a museum staff member to participate in and support the programme, along with the artist and writer. Museum staff also made presentations and held workshops with the groups. It was intended that the writers, artists and museum staff would have an equal artistic partnership and enrich the process with their different skills.

"The Reality Sandwich really sparked the children’s imaginations. The use of photos to inspire writing was a great idea, as was the use of objects. In fact, we are doing a gifted and talented workshop soon, and I’m going to use the "call my bluff" idea from their work in these sessions," - Museum staff member, Captain Cook Birthplace Museum

There was a concern on the museums’ part at the beginning of the project that participants would "get bored" of the sessions or leave and jeopardise the project, but this couldn’t be further from actuality. Participant attendance was very consistent and groups bonded well, even with mixed age ranges, with parents and grandparents working among young people and surprising each other with their areas of interest and creative ideas.

"I am trouble, I hate writing at school but it’s OK here, it’s fun - well actually, it’s great, I’m doing loads!" - participant at Preston Hall Museum

Partnerships

Schools and community groups were selected by the museums as people they particularly wanted to work with on this project, and New Writing North coordinated the partnerships and the overall project. The emphasis was on creating the partnership and deciding on the way that the museum and the group were going to work before bringing in the artist and writer; that way, writers could be identified who matched the partnership best.

Partnerships met regularly before and during the project at project management meetings, which helped ensure the smooth running of the collaboration. New Writing north also worked with a professional evaluator who embedded reflection and evaluation throughout the project.

The evaluation process proved invaluable, as it ensured that projects were visited on a frequent basis and gave participants another contact should difficulties need talking through.

Outcomes

Outcomes were very good for this project and a high level of cooperation developed among the children; in general there was a strong sense of writing as a group activity accessible to all. Because it was quite a long-term project (20 weeks), groups tended to feel confident with sharing creative work with each other and bonded well over time. Levels of engagement and motivation in all groups exceeded expectations.

"My best piece was when I wrote my reality sandwich because I found that in my brain I could find ideas that I thought I didn’t have. I have learnt that when I use my imagination I have lots of ideas" - participant from Middlesbrough

The quality of the final exhibition work, both written and visual, was extremely high and has been collated into a book, "Museum of My Life: An anthology of creative writing inspired by museums" published by New Writing North in 2007. Many children found that over the period of the project they produced far more writing than they expected, and in a wide range of styles. Children also began writing at home for pleasure when they had not done so before.

"This has been a great project for one of our pupils in particular. He isn’t very academic and tends not to apply himself and has been caught playing truant. He usually doesn’t stick at things but he hasn’t missed a single session of this project" - Monkwearmouth School

The imaginative quality of the work produced is highly impressive and is documented in the attached Teachers Guide, a practical resource that was created by New Writing North for teachers, writers and museum staff, and indeed anyone interested in learning more about how to generate creative writing projects in museums.

"One pupil has been off due to an emergency appendix operation. His mum sent a note to school asking if he could still be involved in the creative writing project - it was that important to him" - Monkwearmouth School

Resources

For a copy of the Museum of My Life teacher’s booklet and Anthology, please contact Anna Disley at New Writing North -

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