1. Project overview

Participants from South London Gallery’s young people’s forum, the Art Assassins, took the lead in researching and re-examining the 1911 Festival of Empire. Through this project, the Art  Assassins developed archival research and digital storytelling skills, engaging with online platforms including Wikimedia and FrameVR.

2. Project stats

3. Key successes

• Working with the young researchers worked fantastically. Having young people at the lead felt true to the project and offered a significant opportunity to two people at the beginning of their careers.
• The partnership with UAL’s Creative Computing Institute.
• The creation of a digital world by the Art Assassins that can be viewed publicly and will be presented as part of a Decolonising Wikipedia event in May.
• The virtual world created by the Art Assassins came together really well and is an interesting record of the project itself, authored and voiced by the participants.

4. Key learnings

• Scale back some of the planned outcomes or extend the overall project timeline.
• Give more time for Wikipedia sessions and think about how these are accessible to all young people at different educational levels.

5. Top tip

If working with young people, ensure they are given the opportunity to lead and amplify their voice. When working with sensitive archives you must give space for people’s emotional responses to the material. Even in spaces where we are expected to remain ‘neutral’. Anticipate conflict – there are always different ideas of what story ‘should’ be told.

6. Link to digital outputs

• Places Never Seen: a youth led, digital exploration of the 1911 Festival of Empire, South London Gallery website
• Places Never Seen presentation – Festival of Empire blog post
• Places Never Seen – Frame VR website

7. Attribution

Digitally Democratising Archives (2022) by The Audience Agency supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Digitally Democratising Archives (Opening Archives) was an action research project, designed and led by The Audience Agency, supporting 10 organisations to explore archives, community engagement and digital tools. It was funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2021/22 as part of the as part of the Digital Skills for Heritage’s Connect Heritage programme.

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Except where noted and excluding company and organisation logos this work is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) Licence

Please attribute as: "Digitally Democratising Archives: Case Study 3 (2022) by The Audience Agency supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, licensed under CC BY 4.0