The core aim of the MEMK project was to mount a 6 week exhibition featuring the stories of 6 communities who have made their homes in Milton Keynes. The exhibition would be supported by storytelling and dance in schools.

The story had already begun, Noel Menuge, Community Historian for Living Archive’s People’s History of Milton Keynes project, had collected oral testimony from the Somali, Hong Kong Chinese and Italian communities. Sue Quinn the Project Manager of Living Archive who devised the MEMK project had been working with the new city’s Asian community and had published their stories in a book. It had occurred to Sue that there should be a wider audience for these stories and that much of the information would be of use to teachers in the new Citizenship curriculum.

Sue raised extra funding to collect the stories from the African Caribbean and Ghanaian communities. Milton Keynes has had strong links with Ghana in 2000 many schools in Milton Keynes had taken part in the ‘On the Line’ project making links with schools in Ghana.

A successful application was then made to the ‘Your Heritage’ scheme for funding from Heritage Lottery Fund and this was matched with funding from Milton Keynes Community Foundation and Milton Keynes Arts Association.

Views of the exhibition		Views of the exhibition

The project involved specialised workers.

Global Education Milton Keynes (formerly MK World Development Centre) had organised the earlier Ghana ‘On the Line’ project and already had links with schools and resources that could be used for the exhibition. They were bought in to run the project on a day to day basis and to write the teachers’ packs to accompany the exhibition.

Word in Edgeways storytellers were bought in as consultants to arrange storytellers in schools and to manage the visits. This was done with professionalism and new storytellers who had not been in MK before were booked for residencies. As well as storytelling in schools, W in E led sessions in the gallery.

Bucks Dance had received money from the Regional Arts Lottery Programme to promote dance in schools. Using their funding matched with the resources for the exhibition we were able to attract dancers from the countries featured in the exhibition to work in schools.

Stantonbury Campus provided the Gallery space for the exhibition. A level art students worked with artist Angela Carel creating 8 x 4 backdrops for the exhibition. These created an atmosphere and feeling for the different countries.

Students from Stantonbury Campus working with artist Angela Carel painting the panels for the exhibition		Carol Wilkie, Karen Visard at the launch

The whole project was managed by Sue Quinn, Project Manager Living Archive.

The Exhibition
Each country was given an area in the gallery. Opposite each country was the storytelling panel that had been created from the oral histories collected

For each country artefacts were collected and arranged in front of the backdrops. This consisted of food, homewares - pots, pans, household goods, drums, clothes and religious artefacts etc.. Many of these were donated by the community. Wolverton based Ferrari Fashions loaned a wedding dress. This was kept in a glass case because of its value and it took two people to carry it as it was so heavy!

There were large panels made up of faces to match the different communities and an introduction panel. We thought it would be fun to trace the origins of visitors, so the schools were asked to list where pupils had come from and this was transferred onto a map at the entrance to the exhibition.

We had a large screen TV and video which featured archive material about the different countries and this was used to put the exhibition in context for older visitors.

Storyteller Phil Tipper with children at the exhibition		Inno Sorsy a Ghanaian storyteller with children at one of the school workshops

Schools
Teacher’s packs were distributed to all schools in Milton Keynes before the exhibition. We worked our way out from the gallery’s location at Stantonbury Campus contacting schools that were in walking distance of the exhibition. Although this area - Stantonbury; Bradville, Conniburrow and Heelands has not received any SRB funding they contain some of the oldest estates in Milton Keynes and some have significant areas of deprivation. Conniburrow has a significant Somali and African Caribbean community.

Stanton Middle School in Bradville was the most enthusiastic school in Milton Keynes: all of their 270 pupils visited the exhibition and follow up work in the class room showed that made the best use of the opportunity.

Storyteller Roop Singh		Storyteller Roop Singh

As we were dealing with pupils from 5 - 19 we devised work sheets for each age group. The first school pupils would arrive at the gallery and have a storytelling session. They were then split into 2 groups: group one were taken round the exhibition, trying on clothes; handling artefacts and guessing what they were used for. The second group were given templates to make shadow puppets that could be used to make a Hindu puppet show.

Middle schools had a storyteller and were then split into two groups and given work sheets, they had to read the panels to find the answers and look at the globes to identify capital cities.

Secondary pupils were usually bought in small groups by subject areas and teachers used the exhibition to fit with studies.

We had an average of 3 schools in a day. All schools were given feedback forms and we had 50% returned along with examples of work from the children. It was very interesting the different things that had stuck in their minds.

Other visitors
Stantonbury Gallery links the Theatre with the Leisure centre so is open during performances. On the opening week of the exhibition Yeoman of the Guard was being performed by the local operatic group in the Theatre. We staffed the exhibition during the performances showing the public around and answering questions. The majority of the audience were older people, over 50.

The exhibition ran over the Easter holiday and we contacted sheltered housing groups to arrange visits. Only 3 took the offer up even though we offered free transport. This was disappointing, but maybe due to the lack of elders from minority groups in this style of accommodation in Milton Keynes.

The Launch
The launch was held on April 10th 2003. All those who had given their stories together with friends and family were invited. The mayor officially opened the exhibition and children who had attended bought parents. To make it a truly multi-cultural event we had food from: Africa, the Caribbean, Italy, India and China.

Views of the exhibition		Views of the exhibition

The Performance
Although this was not in the original application it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. We booked Stantonbury Theatre and arranged for free dance workshops during the day and an evening performance featuring; dance; African drumming, storytelling and a puppet show.

The Website
This project has been about awareness and sharing. In order to make the material more accessible and give it a longer life this web site has been developed that includes the material from the teachers’ packs, backgrounds to the countries and other resource information.

Conculsion
The aim of the project was to mount a six week exhibition in Stantonbury Gallery and to have storytelling sessions in schools: because it attracted sufficient funding to achieve its goals it was a huge success. Partnerships with organisations were key to the delivery and enabled the original idea to be enhanced and spread more widely.