‘OK to Play’: what is the role of hyper-local, resident-led, creative action in addressing barriers to children’s outdoor physical activity, play and independent mobility in their everyday, urban neighbourhood environments?
Involving Lydia Collison and Jessica Roy (Policy Studies), Jennifer Crane (Geographical Sciences), Amy Rose and Jenny Sanderson (Bocadalupa)
By combining archive exploration (Welfare State International), creative qualitative methods with children and their families and co-design workshops with parents, the project aims to answer the questions: What is the geographical, cultural and contextual history of neighbourhoods for children and families? How do children in the community perceive their environment and threshold spaces regarding play and physical activity? What narratives exist around play, safety and community in the neighbourhood and how are these shared across generations and communities? What individual creative actions can encourage cultural shifts in using threshold spaces and the wider neighbourhood?
Page Against the Machine: AI and Poetry (II)
Involving Rebecca Kosick and Katy Kadacz (Modern Languages), Francesco Bentivegna (Theatre), Caleb Parkin (Exeter University), Michael Marcinkowski (King’s College London), Danny Pandolfi, Shakara Thompson, Deanna Rodger and Vince Baidoo (Lyra Bristol Poetry)
Following on from a Brigstow Institute Ideas Exchange grant, this project will explore the overarching question: How can poetic writing produced by, or with, AI accurately model human voice, narrative and place-based experience? Within this, they also aim to answer other questions, such as: Is the desire to create, be expressive and tell stories unique to human consciousness, or can AI simulate this? Can AI help people and communities in a way which nurtures, not suppresses, human creativity?
Storying the Avon: From freshwater science to folklore
Involving James Palmer and Ana Castro-Castellon (Geographical Sciences), Michael Malay (English) and Corinne Harragin (Oral Storyteller, Trainer and Performance Practitioner)
In light of the catastrophic river health in Britain, this project seeks to connect Bristolians with their local river, the Avon using a mix of archival research, community engagement and storytelling methods. The team will research the history of the Avon, carry out field based interviews, hold a community workshop and drawing upon the materials gathered in these activities, will write the script of an audio-walk.
Whispers from the Archive: Chronic illness, creative responses and community
Involving Barbara Caddick, Lucy Plumb and Barny Hole (Medical School), Julian Warren (Theatre Collection) and Elspeth Penny (2BU Productions)
This project builds on a participatory arts project ‘Letter to my Kidney’, which aimed to raise awareness of chronic kidney disease, and uses the Welfare State International (WSI) Archive. Using creative letter writing as a participatory research methodology, with embedded artistic co-production, the team aim to answer the questions: How did WSI approach health in their practice? What can we learn from WSI about co-creation of meaningful and engaging community arts practice? How do people living with chronic kidney disease want to tell their stories; who do they want to share their stories with; how do they want their stories told? Could the WSI archive be used to scope out other ways to democratise health through public art?
Tales from the Bottle: Exploring the legacy of English glassmaking
Involving Claire Corkhill and Kirill Vlasov (Earth Sciences), Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Zakiya McKenzie (Personal to the Planetary Fellow) and Dave Barry (Bristol Blue Glass Studio)
This project aims to investigate the link between Bristol black glass, colonialism and slavery. The team will study the 18th and 19th century English black glass preserved in the collections of the Bristol Museum and Arts Gallery and will try to answer the question: How can the new geomaterials-informed knowledge about the chemical composition of English black glass help to uncover its historical and social significance?
From Ghana to Bristol: Reimagining reparative justice in a postcolonial world
Involving Edson Burton (English), Iman Sultan West and Emmanuella Morsi (Personal to the Planetary Fellows)
Involving a visit to Ghana to learn from local residents and indigenous creatives, this project will investigate what the future of reparative justice looks like in the ever-changing world of climate crisis and post-colonial environmental challenges through a lens informed by indigenous knowledge and postcolonial perspectives. The research team aim to initiate deeper dialogues on how museums and similar institutions can prioritise reciprocity and meaningful exchange within cross-cultural collaborations.