Hoxton  and The Geffrye To Bunhill Fields

Using #MoMA mobile guide on phone. Great that you can get free audio guide - easy to navigate & runs smoothly - couple of feedback things though - would be good if 'back' button just went back to previous page rather than home page as need to scroll through again to art works and some kind of map navigation tool/map on it would be great....

South London Botanical Institute - Victorians through trade and and empire - one of three rooms for the  workshop - here year 4 our children were learning about Marianne North and her art. It is near the end of the hlf funded project. The children drew and wrote accompanying labels.  I was helping out on the day.

Approaches to Research

So, I have finally been dipping into the book entitled 'Doing Your Research Project'. The one that is hailed as the 'traditional' approach. We have talked about some different approaches to research in our classes, but still I feel a bit stuck between styles. I like the ideas of 'Action Research', yet I am not really trying to challenge anything or change anything about the job I am doing, because it is not my job, it is an independent project. Yet, I think I have been calling what I am doing action research just for the fact that I am aiming to make a 'product' (in other-words a trail) myself as part of my learning about what makes an effective community trail.

I am also quite intrigued by the 'narrative inquiry' approach. I like the ideas of it, but my question is whether I can be a good storyteller or not! I am looking for stories for my project - stories about the park - and looking into other people's trails that they have created, which are stories - and psychogeography itself seems to have its roots in stories - which I must check out - and I am indeed blogging the process so there is some hope that the narrative approach could be incorporated in my study and writing.

Apologies for the very obvious nature of this entry. I am probably not sounding like an MA student!!

In other news, as they say, I've started listening to the radio for the duration of this assignment (ok, as of yesterday) in order to concentrate on the medium of the spoken word - to consider its potential and gain inspiration.

Questions I have been thinking all along, but came to me quite strongly on the underground yesterday are - and these are exactly how I typed them and so don't always make perfect sense, but it is a snippet of my thoughts in action - mostly on te theme of what questions I might ask makers of trails: 'Good practice and effective community trail? Effective for who? The listener or the maker and the community? Or all? What benefits have ppl found? I am looking into alternatives too because can gain inspiration from them... What types are there?! Was there a reason for making a community trail as opposed to another form of interpretation/ engagement? For you what are the positives of making a community trail?'

My next task is to send out the questionnaires and also the text I have been working on to try and recruit participants. I've ordered my digital recorder at last! The Tascam dr-40! Fingers crossed it arrives ok, it works and that I can work out how to use it properly as well as of course get the good stories to record!

Okay, for now it is onwards with reading some articles we were given in class a couple of weeks back about research styles and then for some more reading of my intro to psychogeography book and hopefully a listen of some of the audio trails that people sent me and that I won't be able to go and try them out on the spot as such. I am still hoping for an improvement in weather again to go and try out the trails in location!!!

#100happydays day 5 .... bit boring and predictable but today I was happy to release the fourth track of my audio trail...

I'm doing #100happydays - I think I'm ok at noticing things and will try and make it more museum/career orientated, but with space for other happy things :) Doesn't mean my life will be all blue skies- but today is! I did feel a bit resentful/confused of/by the sudden sun these past mornings because I felt so tired but the sun has won me over today :)

I must apologise for the absence here!

I have not kept up this blog as much as I wanted to. I have been adding the little updates of my recording on my Facebook Page - and have not found a way to link those up directly with this page! I will try and write some more posts here. However, in the mean time here is a link to my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/CPPAudiotrail 

You can also follow me as ret_uk on Twitter - which is linked with my Facebook updates...

In brief, I have now finished two weeks of my main recording for what I hope will be a pilot audio trail of the park. I have really enjoyed it and been extremely appreciate of everyone who has helped me in some way - from suggesting people to contact to being interviewed or even creating music for it!

I will continue to collect stories as they come, but will not actively pursue them during what will become a time of editing and report writing!!

Quite a long entry - only read if you are a glutton for punishment!

Time is pressing on and I am aware of a slight fear of what I will get done before my course deadline. I have been through my initial essay stress and relaxed again (to some extent). However, before today I was realising that even with having had a bit of interest shown and people saying that they would take part - that I had no proper confirmations and/or set times to record people. I have the feeling that creating a full park community trail is truly something that takes a lot of time planning and then creating. Perhaps this is even more so because I want this to be a community trail, with ‘real’ community voices as opposed to an audio trail written by me and with one narrator. I want to have a large section of the community represented and inevitably it takes time for the word to spread and to get to know people. I have already decided that I will make a small initial trail, perhaps about the top site for the purposes of my coursework - with the plan of completing the rest of the park in my own time. A short trail will nevertheless also require careful thought and planning!

  The nature of the work so far is that as expected I am learning day by day. I had the suggestion of creating a Facebook event stating when I plan to be in the park and available to record people, which I will put into action. I could advertise more, but have to remember my limits. At the Crystal Palace Overground Festival today, I met a whole variety of very interesting and helpful people. I feel confirmed that it is a good idea to create an audio trail – however, as already mentioned, it is in theory a vast and far reaching project if truly carried out to the max! One suggestion of something that I hadn’t thought of was that I seek sponsorship – something to consider for the future?

  I also learned that the more I talk about the project the (hopefully) better I get at explaining it to people. I am aware it sometimes sounded a bit floury when trying to explain it to people for the first time. I know that this comes from a desire to be open to what comes up in the creative process, as well as it being the first time that I have developed this kind of project. However, I feel that I don’t need to sound so unsure because I clear of my aim – which is that I would like to record people talking in the park, about the park – as a record of current stories, feelings and actions about and in the park – and these will include stories that reflect back to the park’s interesting past.

  This journal entry will now cover both Saturday and Sunday of the festival. Sunday was again a day of fantastic spoke word and music (and more that I didn’t see). If there is one thing that this weekend has made clear for me, it is that I am keener than ever to include as much creativity into this trail as possible. I would love to have spoken word and music by local artists as part of the audio soundtrack because I believe it has the potential of engaging listeners all the more.

  The experience of further trying out the recording equipment and interview questions on my friend’s daughter reveals that being open and having a relaxed conversational nature (with at the most semi-structured interviews) is a good method. My friend’s daughter was much more natural when put in a position of control and left to herself as such. It also worked to ask fresh, new questions and questions that connected with her feelings. We even had an interesting discussion about what makes a good audio trail. The main feeling was that it shouldn’t be boring and that it should contain humour! 

Museum one of my USA trip ... The American Museum of Natural History. Yummy meal from the Peacefood Cafe not too far away before hand. Ate under the blue skies in Central Park before enjoying #museumhack tour in lovely cool building of the AMNH - great extensive collection!

Here and now at The Cloisters on a tour of the gardens.... very interesting

More Great North Wood Sessions

November 2017

Hello! Bit belated, however I would like to share a few words about the six sessions that Coralie Oddy (who also runs Remini-sense) and I delivered in Crystal Palace Park as part of the London Wildlife Trust's continued Heritage Lottery Funded: Great North Wood Project. 

It's hard to express how delighted I am with the fact that about five years after first starting out on Crystal Palace Park heritage projects I have been able to develop my skills in terms of completing my Masters in Museums and Galleries in Education, learn about Joanna Grace's Sensory Storytelling, tour guiding and oral history techniques from the Inspired by the Subway project - and most of all meeting like minded creative people to work with. Nothing beats the feeling of sharing a passion, brainstorming, developing and delivering a project with others. So thank you Coralie and Emmie! Thank you also to Penny who works in the Crystal Palace Park Information Centre building for welcoming us and the Friends of Crystal Palace Park for having us.

Coralie and I led six music, sensory and storytelling sessions over three days for between 6-8 adults with learning disabilities. We delivered the sessions in September 2017, a little over a year following the delivery of our initial Crystal Palace Park sessions for the London Wildlife Trust with Emmie Ward. Emmie was part of the development of these sessions. 

Coralie and I loved leading the sessions and meeting people from different homes and organisations. We varied the sessions slightly depending on the needs of the group. We had a great mix of participants and a couple of the groups had members who were predominantly sensory beings. Sensory beings is a term used by Joanna Grace to describe how this group of people largely experience the world:

Sensory Beings - people whose primary experience of the world, and meaning within it, is sensory. Joanna Grace  The Sensory-being project

We focussed on sensory activities for these groups, however sensory experiences was a primary way of communicating our theme with all groups. I (and I am aware many others) have often argued - If you make heritage activities accessible to people with as many different needs as you can -  such as in sensory ways - then the visiting experience will often be more pleasurable for all  anyway. I also believe in exploring themes that anyone would want to explore in a heritage venue. It is not purely about simplifying things it about how you develop your programme of activities: I believe one should always get to know the subject as well as you can. Even when working with nursery aged children I am not satisfied with just knowing the basics. It means I probably take longer than anyone else to prepare anything, however, it is just the way I work. I need to understand the topic as fully as I can to work out the essence of what I want to get across. Spending a lot of time in preparation means that you are able to really develop activities that: actually make sense; are meaningful to the heritage location; and link to anything/connections you know between the participants and the theme. Most of all spend time with people and have a passion for the people you are working with. This will ensure experiences are truly accessible and mean that nothing is part of the session just 'for the sake of it' or an on the surface accessibility.

I think the photos of the session materials are more useful than any explanations I will give here. These photos follow below. Our main theme was the park and it's different uses. One theme was focussed on the history of the area before the park - when the area was covered with the Great North Wood. We explored the plants, animals and people who lived there. Check out my song about Margaret Finch - famous for being called the Queen of the Gipsies and telling the fortunes of young reveller visitors to the area. For the second theme we concentrated on  The Crystal Palace and included meeting Queen Victoria at the opening ceremony of The Crystal Palace (with added harp music accompaniment that I recorded as part of my community audio trail) and an exploration of the aquarium (of which there are still some remnant walls in the park if you know where to look!) and some of the inventions on display such as Maxim's Flying Machine!

Here is some of the feedback we got: