The Oaks Care Centre
We’re offering five postgraduate students a unique opportunity to be part of an original and imaginative oral history project. We’re looking for dedicated and creative individuals to work with elderly residents at the Oaks Care Centre in York, many of whom suffer from dementia. Three members of the team will visit the home to interview residents and record their memories and stories. These recordings will then be used as inspiration for a short performance, to be given at the care home in front of the residents and their families. The performance will use music and objects, and will appeal to senses such as taste and even smell to bridge the gap between the residents’ past and present. Our postgraduate volunteers will collaborate with actors, musicians and artists to create an event that will be a celebration of the residents’ lives and a lasting memory for their friends and families.
Participants will receive training in oral history research, including interview techniques and recording, and in the skills needed to communicate effectively with people living with dementia. This will be a challenging and stimulating opportunity to work with an often-overlooked section of our society, and promises to be highly rewarding on both a personal and professional level.
Contact: Ben Elliott (bje500@york.ac.uk) outlining your interest in this project and indicating your availability for the stages of the project (outlined below). Recruitment for the core team (5 places available) will close at noon on Wednesday 10th February 2011.
If you are a performer and would like to be involved in the final storytelling event in June, we’d love to hear from you.
Timetable:
February: Identify residents to interview by talking with their families and care home staff; recruit and train postgraduate team members.
March: 3 students to visit the care home to carry out interviews with residents and record their stories.
April: Postgraduate students to reflect on the recordings and generate ideas for the performance; meeting with care home staff and residents’ family members to approve final plans for performance.
May: Rehearsals with musicians and performers.
June: Performance for interviewees and their families, staff members, and other residents to take place at the care home.
St Oswald’s Primary School
This is a wonderful opportunity to learn about the challenges and delights of communicating research to lively and enquiring young minds, and to put into action the skills you have learnt on the Sensory Stories training day. You will have the scope to create and lead a workshop with some of the schoolchildren at St Oswald’s CE Primary School in Fulford, York. Each term the curriculum is delivered using an overarching theme, and you will need to create and lead a workshop that fits in with one of the following:
Years 3/4 – Forces of Nature (Summer Term)
Years 5/6 – Transport (Spring Term)
Years 5/6 – Global Society (Summer Term)
You will need to be available to meet with one of the school’s teachers before the day of your workshop to ensure that what you propose is suitable, and to discuss the pupils themselves, so that you are aware of what to expect. Teachers from the school will be on hand at all times to help supervise the children, but you will also be asked to undergo a CRB check, which can be done under the auspices of the University of York.
Contact: Philippa Turner, pmt500@york.ac.uk
York Art Gallery
This is a wonderful chance for postgraduate students in the Arts and Humanities to get involved in planning a half-day interactive event at York Art Gallery. It aims to engage the public with works in the Gallery through a series of fun, exciting and unusual sensory and interactive activities/performances. This is a great opportunity for postgraduates to develop their skills in experimenting with different forms of public engagement and communicating research through art collections and objects.
Dates: Planning Day: Friday 18 February, 10am-3pm, York Art Gallery Event: Saturday 28 May 10:30am-2:30pm, York Art Gallery
Contacts: Matt Jenkins (mj520@york.ac.uk), Department of Archaeology, University of York; Jasmine Allen (ja509@york.ac.uk), History of Art Department, University of York
Shandy Hall Museum
It was at Shandy Hall between 1760 and 1767 that the witty and eccentric parson Laurence Sterne wrote Tristram Shandy, one of the most extraordinary novels in the English language. Architecturally as intriguing and eccentric as its former occupant, the hall is still a lived-in house, more than 500 years old, full of books pictures and amazing memorabilia that tell Sterne’s story. Participants will work with Elinor Camille-Wood, the Shandy Hall Collections Officer, over a 3 day period and be trained how to photograph and catalogue the library collection. This is a fantastic opportunity for humanities postgraduates to acquire valuable skills such as object research, object handling, book preservation and using cataloguing systems, and to experience at first-hand how literary history is interpreted in a museum setting.
Venue: Shandy Hall, Coxwold, North Yorkshire (35 minutes drive north of York) Dates: 15th, 16th, 17th February 2011 Contact: Mark Eslick (mae500@york.ac.uk), Dept of English, University of York
Yorkshire Museum, York
The first Sensory Opportunity launches on Wednesday 2 February and is an exceptional chance to actively learn about public engagement at one of the country’s top museums. It will be a great chance for postgraduates from any discipline to learn from experts about the challenges of communicating and interpreting the past to the public and introduce participants to the work of the museum curator. The day will include workshops using objects from the museum’s collections and focusing on the challenges of labelling and interpreting. This will be followed in future months by further training and an opportunity to be involved in public engagement projects at the museum.
Contact: Laura Chesworth, ljc528@york.ac.uk
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