Engaging diverse audiences to increase skills, inspire and spark creativity

The nine-week DigiCreative Heritage project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund with a grant of £25,500 was a pilot project set up by Julie Davis at the Wiltshire and History Centre alongside freelance practitioner Louise Jordan. We both shared a passion for history and heritage and wanted to engage with members of the Wiltshire community who may be less likely to work with our organisation due to barriers engaging with education and learning opportunities.

The aim of the project was to work with a small group of people with SEND, SEMH needs or care experience who may lack confidence and/or experience anxiety issues. We hoped that over the course of the nine weeks the group would locate and study items in the History Centre’s archive and local studies collections, gain research and technology skills such as learning to assess and handle items, using excel spreadsheets, digitising material, alongside planning skills to turn their ideas about their items of choice into a creative piece using drawing, collage, animation, sound and other techniques, with a visit to Chippenham Museum to hear about how they plan their exhibitions. The culmination would be an exhibition, which is currently touring 6 Wiltshire libraries and a final session about next steps: how to move forwards with new skills gained. We hoped the participants might be able to gain confidence, better their communication skills and feel a sense of belonging by the end of the sessions. A certificate of completion was handed out to all those who completed the project.

Project partners included Prime Theatre, Building Bridges and Wiltshire Council (acting as referrers), Chippenham Museum, Chippenham Library and the Wiltshire Family and Community Learning team. We also worked with three amazing creative practitioners; Caroline Rudge, Kirsty Jones and Ian McGinn, with Greg the videographer bringing his unique skills into play to record the project journey. The varied expertise and experience of the partnership team proved key to its success.

Well, what a journey we had! The group gained all the above skills and more; they gelled so well as a group; made friends, had fun, blossomed and really grew in confidence. We learnt a lot from each other, and everyone felt genuinely sad when the sessions came to an end. Engagement with the project was brilliant with some participants regularly travelling long distances to attend, the draw of the project helping them overcome their anxieties. It was wonderful to be able to share with them their passion for history – it gave a real sense of connection and enlivened the sessions. The project has far exceeded our expectations, each session bringing such a lively buzz to the History Centre, it was contagious! We had many positive comments from staff and visitors; the participants were welcomed and appreciated which added to their sense of self-worth. There were challenges but none that could not be overcome. We at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre were totally inexperienced at working with vulnerable adults with additional needs. This was a worry before the project began, but we have learnt so much from our project partners and the participants themselves who have been fantastic and have achieved so much. We are so very proud of them!

Is there anything we’d do differently? Realise that planning and administration takes a lot longer than you’d think… Hold more sessions as they flew by and were a bit more rushed than we all would have liked. A couple of participants very much wanted to engage with the project but their social anxiety proved too big a barrier. Louise, the project’s participant mentor, worked hard to enable them to continue but unfortunately this wasn’t possible. We would very much like to investigate remote working for future projects with hybrid online and face-to-face participation to try to break down this barrier.

Would we run the project again? Yes!! It’s been a wonderful project to work on; the staff at the History Centre who assisted felt a real sense of achievement and ability to make a difference to others, and to help the group learn more about WSHC’s collections. We’ve seen a new side to our collections and how they are studied, and it’s been refreshing and exciting to see them looked at from different perspectives. We are already investigating new funding options and can’t wait to go again!

The project’s evaluation report and toolkit will be available here soon. You can also find the animations created for the exhibition on the History Centre’s YouTube channel.

Chippenham Library hosted the first outing of the exhibition created by project participants.

DigiCreative Heritage Project Toolkit

DigiCreative Heritage Evaluation Report

Julie Davis
Archive & Local Studies Lead (Development, Wellbeing & Local Studies)