Lucy Knock, Assistant Curator of History for Informal Learning at York Museums Trust, helps facilitate a variety of projects to encourage different community groups to engage with the building and collections at York Castle Museum. Here, Lucy explains some of our recent achievements.

Since 2014, York Castle Museum has been running some exciting community arts engagement projects as part of the Changing Spaces Activity Programme funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Through these projects, York Museums Trust is working with people who would not otherwise visit the Castle Museum.

The projects provide fantastic creative learning opportunities for the wider community and foster a sense of community ownership of the museum and its collection. At the same time, the projects help to broaden and inform the museum’s approach to the interpretation of and access to its own collection.

Project coordinator and community artist Griselda Goldsborough and myself with the support of the History Team have worked with lots of different groups over the past three years including:

• Refugee Action York (RAY) and 4 Corners Youth Group (run in partnership with City of York Council for secondary school age young people from refugee, asylum seeker and migrant backgrounds)
• Recovery Unit and Assertive Outreach Project (mental health care providers in Acomb and Clifton for people with complex and challenging needs)
• Some of York’s Cluster Children’s Centres
• IDAS (a charity providing support to those experiencing or affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence)
• Howe Hill Hostel (providing supportive accommodation and education to homeless young people)
• Beehive Pre-school (military based)
• City of York Council’s Family Learning (designed to provide under achievers aged 16-19 who are not in school the skills needed to access apprenticeships).

The Howe Hill Hostel in Acomb conducted a series of sessions allowing young homeless people to get the chance to look closely at objects in our latest exhibition, Shaping the Body.

A Support Worker at Howe Hill commented on the success of the sessions:

“The participants had been on a journey where they had been challenged, discovered and learnt new things. They had developed a sense of belonging and ownership of the project – the first couple of sessions the participants attention span was not for long – by the last few sessions we over ran with creativity! [They asked:] ‘Why can’t we do this all day?!'”

Indeed, participants’ comments show what a difference access to our collections can make. Such comments include one youngster who said:

“I saw the Castle on my way to court and there was lots of filming equipment outside – I thought that’s where I want to be – working there!”

Another reflected:

“When I first came in I didn’t want nowt to do with it. Then Griselda persuaded me to use my artistic skills. I ended up enjoying it and using my anger in a different way.”

Adult coordinators, including York Museums Trust staff, have also benefited from the community projects. Young adults and teenagers worked on a ‘Glam Up’ project (pictured below), which featured as part of the opening of the Shaping the Body exhibition at the Castle Museum in March 2016.

One care worker involved with the project commented:

“I’ve really enjoyed being part of a workshop – the young people had great creative input and got involved and experimented. Their enthusiasm and fun really made the session enjoyable and we’ve all got a lot out of it.”

A colleague was in agreement, adding:

“Having spoken to many of the participants during my visit on the final workshop, there was great enthusiasm and positivity about the whole project; participants seemed liberated and confident in their new-found skills, and in the opportunity to be personally expressive in various creative ways.”

For more information on Howe Hill please click here.

Visit our website here for information on our community projects and contact details if you would like to get involved.