Past, present and future: connecting communities with shared histories

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The project will stimulate impact amongst new audiences and partners by staging active encounters with the Mendelsohn archive: 3,000 images taken when Mendelsohn was a student at CCCS in the 1960s, and interviews she conducted with her subjects. Undertaken in collaboration with project partners - Flatpack Film Festival, Ikon Gallery, Library of Birmingham (LoB), Ort Café and Some Cities - activities will consist of: A 'pop up' outdoor exhibition in Balsall Heath, the Birmingham district where the Mendelsohn photographs were taken, run by Flatpack.A local discussion event at Ort Café in Balsall Heath, and a symposium at the LoB.Two photography workshops with hard-to-reach communities run by Some Cities, a local photography collective.A major exhibition at Ikon, the most prominent art gallery in the region.The project follows on from the original project in encouraging audiences to engage with the legacy of CCCS by thinking critically about society. It moves beyond it, however, by working in innovative ways with hard-to-reach communities in order to challenge stereotypes about the areas in which they live, engage communities in thinking critically about their own lives, and form a definition of culture inclusive of ordinary people's experiences.First, the project will connect hard-to-reach communities with their shared histories via the Mendelsohn archive. Second, it will encourage communities to think critically about their own experiences and aspirations. Third, the project will enable communities to form visual representations of these experiences and aspirations via photography. Fourth, it will challenge stereotypes regarding life in inner-city areas and the meaning of 'culture'. And fifth, the project will develop the working practices of partner organisations, both in terms of their way of working with hard-to-reach audiences and their own understandings of culture. The local discussion event and 'pop up' exhibition will engage Balsall Heath communities with the Mendelsohn archive and facilitate knowledge exchange between academics and communities. The exhibition will reach audiences who do not usually engage with impact activities while the photographic focus will help facilitate an engagement with those who do not speak English as a first language and can therefore be excluded from activities reliant on written material; an interpreter will be employed to facilitate communication as necessary. By engaging with their shared histories, communities will be encouraged to think critically about their own experiences and, through the photography workshops, form a visual record of their lives in Balsall Heath.The Ikon exhibition and LoB symposium will challenge audiences more generally to modify preconceptions of 'culture' and life in inner-city areas. Ikon's reputation means the exhibition will reach audiences from across the country, while the LoB attracts 2,000,000 annual visitors. By putting Mendelsohn's photographs of Balsall Heath and those produced by current residents in these artistic and civic contexts, the project will challenge both negative stereotypes about inner-city areas and conservative understandings of culture that discount the experiences of ordinary people. The project will thus also develop the practices of partner organisations to include active engagement with communities such as those in Balsall Heath. The project will be based at the Centre for Modern British Studies (MBS), University of Birmingham (UoB). Partly inspired by CCCS, MBS is committed to developing new forms of impact. In the context of anxieties over community cohesion, the project represents a timely intervention that celebrates diversity and stimulates dialogue about community aspirations. Its legacies will be ensured by the production of an exhibition catalogue as well as the deposition of the new archive of photographs alongside the Mendelsohn archive in the Cadbury Research Library, UoB.