Explore Your Archive – Events Spotlight 

It’s the end of Explore Your Archive campaign week, and we’d like to share some of the exciting events and activities that took place in archive services across Wales. 

North East Wales Archives (Ruthin) celebrated all things photography during their event called “Flashback: Photography in the Archive” which featured an exhibition of archival collections including early Victorian Carte de Visite portraits and photographs of local industry and agriculture. The archive service also teamed up with two local photographers to host a guest photography exhibition “Honest Agriculture” onsite throughout September and on the day of the main event a photographer was based in the courtyard with a street box camera taking family and individual portraits. 

They received a grant to commission an artist specialising in Cyanotype or “sun printing” to work with children and families using an early photography process developed in 1842 by astronomer, Sir John Herschel. The cyanotype process then led to the development of the architect blueprint which many archives services across the country have in their collections. The artist, Caroline Hodgson, creates beautiful botanical prints using this technique and led over 50 children in taking part in the activity during the day using natural material such as feathers (quills) and pressed flowers. The partnership workshop highlighted that an archives service can be potential place for entertainment and fun as well as a source of evidence and facts. The event as a whole provided something everyone with an introduction to the archives alongside an opportunity to explore a Grade II listed building. 

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Bridging Cultures with Archives 

In the run up to Explore Your Archive week, the Richard Burton Archives were proud to support Bridging Cultures  – an exciting new project at Swansea University with the aim to educate, celebrate, and inform students and staff about acceptance and tolerance of people from different cultural backgrounds.  Participating in the project was a fantastic opportunity to explore ways in which the Archives could celebrate diversity, make the collections more representative, and engage with new audiences, through: 

• hosting a workshop which explored the history, experiences, and contribution of international students through the University archives collections 
• providing oral history training to project members 
• recording oral history interviews with participants in the workshop, exploring themes such as food, childhood, friendship, language and home 
• creating a display of material for the Bridging Cultures exhibition including photographs, student newspapers and student record cards 

With the help of funding from Archives and Records Council Wales and Swansea University Library, an audio kiosk was purchased to showcase clips from the oral history interviews as part of the exhibition. 

The Bridging Cultures exhibition launched on International Students’ Day on 17th November with a vibrant event of food, music and dancing, poetry and poetry, and will now be hosted at Singleton Park Library, Swansea University, until January 2024.  

‘One of the primary benefits of this project is the empowerment and representation of individuals whose voices and communities often get overlooked. It is great to see students have a great sense of pride, and identity, hearing and seeing people who look like them represented in the Archives. The representation of different cultures is a reminder of our diversity, and the ‘Bridging Cultures’ exhibition seeks to build bridges, and connect us to our shared humanity. This project underscores the Richard Burton Archive’s commitment to diversifying their collection, one story at a time.’ –  Theresa Ogbekhiulu, Senior Project Advisor (EDI/Race Equality), Swansea Academy of Inclusivity 

For more information on this project see the blog post – https://swanseauniarchives.home.blog/2023/12/03/bridging-cultures/  

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Explore Your Archives sessions in schools 

This year Conwy Archives prepared resources to take Explore Your Archive to three local schools. So far they have delivered two sessions to about 65 KS2 pupils, explaining what archives are and showcasing surrogate resources focussing on topics connected to each school’s Cynefin.  They have engaged the children with games, including a sorting activity with items to be deposited with either the librarian, archivist or museum curator (enthusiastic classroom volunteers!), and a higher/lower guessing game about the age of artefacts, and how many images, maps or documents are in Conwy Archives. After hearing presentations on ten topics, children completed quiz sheets in small groups and then voted on their three favourite subjects. These are being turned into an interactive PowerPoint for the whole school to view.  The printed resources were also left with the schools for their own future use. All the sessions are being delivered through the medium of Welsh. Here are some quotes from the sessions: 

“Bydd y gweithdy yn sbardun da ar gyfer deall sut oedd rhyfel yn effeithio bywydau pobl cyffredin ac o bob cwr o’r wlad.” [English – “The workshop is a good starting point for understanding how the war affected the lives of ordinary people and all around the country.”] 

“Roedd y gwaith o didoli y nwyddau i llyfrgell / archifdy / amgueddfa yn un da.” 
[English – “The work of sorting the items to library / archive / museum was a good one.”]

“[Bydden ni’n] gallu gwneud gweithgareddau ymhellach ar ein hardal leol yn deillio o’r gweithdy.” 
English – “[We will] be able to do further activities about our local area derived from the workshop.” 

Archives Wales, December 2023