This workshop anticipates the birth of a project. In a joint collaboration between MMU and University of Lincoln, Who do we think we are? is a project which seeks to explore the very work of archiving. We will use materials from the Royle Collection, (Arthur Royle, Wythenshawe, Manchester). Arthur Royle was a pioneer recorder of Wythenshawe local history and heritage and amassed and created items of historical importance over 60 years which includes maps, letters, receipts, photographs, sketches, and prints. He also recorded local dialects and pronunciations. He was emblematic of public service and duty. The collection is, as yet, unarchived, and there is a unique opportunity to explore what an archive might do beyond the traditional modes of identifying and classifying. We aim to contribute to the co-design, and co-production methodologies and processes conference theme.
Our workshop seeks to open up what it might mean to actively archive materials in and with those who come into relation with it. In actively exploring connections between disparate objects, systems and processes we also seek to question how histories and cultures are produced, recorded, lived and enacted. To ask questions of the relation between an archive and its audience is also to invite diverse groups and people into a conversation about universal meaning making and particularities.
This workshop will present some materials from the archive and explore the ways in which they may be used, interpreted and worked with, to house and harbor meaning
