Wordsmithery*
Finalist (Publishing) Kent Creative Awards 2016
Winner (Literature) Medway Culture, design and tourism awards 2015
CABBAGE ISLAND
... managing Icon Theatre's 2018 local history project
‘Cabbage Island’ was Icon Theatre’s 2017-2018 local history project designed to uncover, research, share and celebrate the hidden historical sites, local vocabulary, cultural traditions and memories of Luton in Chatham.
The project taught volunteers how to identify and record local heritage and engaged a broad range of participants in exploring and celebrating their local history.
Wordsmithery managed each aspect of this complex heritage project, including; schools workshop liaison, interviewing and transcribing oral histories, putting up and taking down touring exhibition, running reminiscence workshops, researching local history and devising local history trails, designing posters and Stories from Cabbage Island book, designing 2 versions of exhibition, liaison with partner organisations, publicity, installing signs and catering for events.
See more about the project at the Cabbage Island website.
Starting in October 2017, the project ran a range of local history activities including talks and memory sessions, in Chatham and Luton Libraries, at Fort Luton, Medway Archives, and Victory Academy and All Saints COE Primary School. Some of the most interesting things that were found out were put into a touring exhibition which was displayed at the Magpie Centre Café; Chatham Library and Luton Library.
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Two Hidden History walks around Luton were devised, a film was made.
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20 oral histories were recorded and transcribed, then made into a souvenir book to be borrowed from Medway Libraries.
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The Luton Heritage Resource was placed in the Magpie Centre Café from November 2018.
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The project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund with additional support from Medway Council’s Arts Development Team.
Book of oral history transcripts - designed and print managed by Wordsmithery.
