Arts and heritage – Integrating heritage and culture

The central government social inclusion agenda has had an impact on heritage organisations as well as those in the arts. Sue Hayton reports on one project involving young people, which may provide useful lessons for the future.

With the support of Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, and the regional councils, there has been a shift in focus within the heritage sector. While the preservation of artefacts and collections remains important, new interpretations and collections policies have been developed to respond to a range of viewpoints widening our understanding of what heritage is and what it means to us. Arts and heritage collaborations are becoming less dependent on the enthusiasm and commitment of individuals within heritage organisations and are increasingly integrated into their strategic plans and programmes of work.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) encourages museums, libraries and archives to work as ?agents of social change? and to develop partnerships so that they can engage effectively with the communities within which they are based. Recent research that I carried out on behalf of English Heritage, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Yorkshire Museums Council and Kirklees Community History Service(1) revealed that effective dialogue with community groups provided a wealth of ideas, resources and suggestions for broadening access.

Challenging projects

?Young Roots? was piloted in Rotherham, Kirklees and the East Riding of Yorkshire between March 2001 and May 2003. It targets up to £25,000 to heritage projects that have the active participation of young people and which show innovative and creative ways of discovering, interpreting and sharing what they have learned. Through Young Roots, the Heritage Lottery Fund was able to support challenging, new projects which explored personal, social, political and economic dimensions to heritage and which encouraged young people, many disaffected or excluded in some way, to grapple with issues that were important to them. All of the projects allowed them to explore personal attitudes and experiences of their own heritage within a broader cultural context. Projects covered a wide range of heritage subjects presented in creative ways, including a courtroom drama re-enacting trials of the past, a ghost walk telling stories of horror and murder in Withernsea, a website exploring the cultural history of the African Caribbean community in Huddersfield, and a sculpture trail based on local legends at Flamborough Head.

Evaluation was integral to the programme and key success indicators were developed for the assessment of heritage learning in a creative, community context. The criteria helped to define what was meant by heritage learning and enabled a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data from different projects to be analysed against standard criteria. We aimed to allow the criteria to remain flexible enough for the young people themselves to start to define and inform our understanding of what heritage means. All of the projects were evaluated by questionnaire and approximately 25% were observed in more depth through project visits, feedback from young people in a variety of forms, and interviews with project workers, partners and the wider community.

Effective projects were those that fully utilised expertise and resources from the heritage, arts and youth work professions. Where projects were particularly successful, the heritage content and artistic activity were fully integrated. For example, the project worker from the courtroom drama project felt that heritage activity ?provided a focus and a starting point; [it] benefited us to know where we were going from the start.?

The quality of the creative process, product or performance was enhanced through young people having a real knowledge and ownership for what they wanted to communicate through the artistic medium. They became experts in new areas of research and were able to share a journey of discovery with project workers and with creative and heritage professionals. They could acquire skills with the support of experts while maintaining a level of control over the process and content.

Project workers found the need to provide a balance between autonomy and support was a challenge in these projects where everyone was exploring new ground. The ability to sit back and allow projects to develop organically however reaped considerable rewards. Young people appreciated the opportunity to participate actively in heritage activities through a creative medium and felt that they had gained skills that would have an impact in other areas of their lives.

Drama seemed to be a particularly powerful tool. It provided an opportunity for young people to empathise with the lives of a range of historical and fictional characters. It could fill any gaps in the historical materials through the use of improvisation and imagination. The communication of the heritage information through performance was enjoyable for project participants and accessible for their audiences.

Looking ahead

£20m has been earmarked over the next five years through Young Roots for creative heritage projects with young people, and the project is being jointly managed with the National Youth Agency to ensure the quality and safety of work with young people and to explore ways in which heritage work can be integrated into youth work practice. A challenge will be to develop innovative and creative ways in which young people can define and communicate their own cultural heritage.

Sue Hayton is Director of Hayton Associates, a consultancy specialising in research, evaluation and development in the cultural sector. t: 01274 832039; e: [email protected].

(1) Hayton Associates (2000) Heritage for All: access to the cultural heritage by culturally diverse minorities in Yorkshire