Enabling marginalised communities to build identity through culture

A research project supporting participants from marginalised communities in South Wales to explore heritage and identity through the creative arts has just received funding.

The BG Reach project (Blenau Gwent Residents Engaging in Arts, Community and Heritage) has received £37,500 from the UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) £500,000 pathfinder funding, which will be matched by a further £18,500 in kind from The Open University (OU) and project partner, Linc Cymru housing association.

Led by Dr Richard Marsden, Director of Teaching for the School of Arts and Humanities, with Sarah Roberts of the OU in Wales and partner Linc Cymru, the project is built around a series of workshops facilitated by OU tutors. In these sessions community members will reflect on what local history and heritage means to their own sense of identity, and then articulate those reflections through creative endeavours such as creative writing, visual art, song-writing and oral history.

By summer 2020 a multi-media exhibition of participants’ work, designed by community members, will have been produced. This will be toured around Wales and beyond, and also made available online. That exhibition will provide the basis for published research on the intersections between heritage and identity in this post-industrial area. Pathways towards formal study will also be put in place for participants who would like to take the informal learning in the workshops further.

The intention is then to seek further funding in order to widen the project out to disadvantaged communities in other parts of the UK.

“The BG Reach project supports a grassroots passion for heritage in one of the most disadvantaged areas of Wales. Participants will acquire new skills and confidence, as well as tools with which to rebuff the stigma associated with the South Wales Valleys. On top of that, the project will enable us to learn more about how understandings of the past shape identities in the present.”

Tom Saunders, Head of Public Engagement, UK Research and Innovation said:

“This is one of 53 pilot projects that we have funded, all using exciting ways that researchers and innovators can involve the public in their work. In 2020 and beyond, we will build on the lessons we learn through funding these pilot projects to help us achieve our ambition of making research and innovation responsive to the knowledge, priorities and values of society and open to participation by people from all backgrounds.” 

The UKRI fund supports eligible research organisations UK-wide to pilot place-based public engagement partnerships and activities. Of 91 bids from universities across the UK, just 19 were successful.