Bring Your Archives to Life

How are you engaging audiences and volunteers with your archives? Digital activity is an ideal way of keeping in touch, sharing skills and producing co-created content featuring your untold stories. If you need ideas, here are some of the solutions Digital Drama have created for clients this year. Please get in contact if you would like to discuss how we can help you bring your archives to life.

ARCHIVES & VOLUNTEERS:

BRITISH RED CROSS:

Digital Drama created the audio content for 150 Voices, an online exhibition for the British Red Cross to commemorate their 150th anniversary. This project is a great example of how to remotely yet successfully engage existing and new volunteers, run skills training and create content to connect with a broad audience. We trained 50 volunteers across the UK to choose an archive object, research its background, write a script and record a short audio description. Click to visit the online exhibition here: 150 Voices

ARCHIVES & ORAL HISTORIES:

HOME FRONT FILMS:

Working with archive film footage from London’s Screen Archives and oral history interviews with older residents of 6 project partners in London Boroughs, Digital Drama produced 4 short films on the WW2 topics of Digging for Victory, Bombing & the Blitz, Evacuation and VE Day. Oral histories were recorded with 90 residents in the boroughs of Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Hounslow, Kingston and Merton. Read more about the project at Home Front Films

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES OF HALESWORTH IN WW2:

Commissioned by the INK Festival in Suffolk and in partnership with the Halesworth and District Museum, we made a short film combining oral histories and images from the archives and trained 20 volunteers via Zoom in the skills of reminiscence interviewing and recording.

ARCHIVES AND ACTORS:

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES EXHIBITION ‘WITH LOVE’:

Having produced film and audio content for various exhibitions at The National Archives, once again Digital Drama were commissioned to record actors reading letters from the archives for ‘With Love’, exploring correspondence over 500 years featuring stories of heartbreak and passion. The recordings gave texture to the subsequent TNA podcasts and enabled a broad reach and lasting legacy for the archival material.

ARCHIVES AND AUGMENTED REALITY:

FILMMERTON; ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR:

Taking archive photography to a new immersive level, Digital Drama commissioned an AR app for FilmMerton as part of the Mitcham VR Festival. Bringing to life the vibrant photos of Mitcham’s ancient fairground in a site specific pop-up exhibition, visitors used iPads to experience the sounds and moving images of ‘All the Fun of the Fair’.

150 Voices Recorded by Digital Drama for the British Red Cross

Digital Drama has created the audio content for 150 Voices, an online museum for the British Red Cross. We trained volunteers across the UK to choose an object from the archive of the British Red Cross, research its background and record a short audio description.

Click to visit the online museum here: 150 Voices

Lead Curator, Mehzebin Adam describes the background to 150 Voices:

“4 August 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the British Red Cross. Since 1870, we have been providing support to those who need it most, no matter who or where they are. Through 150 voices of people from around the UK and 150 objects from our museum and archives collection, this online exhibition celebrates key moments and people in our incredible history of connecting human kindness with human crisis.

During the First and Second World Wars, we gave relief to sick and wounded members of the armed forces, prisoners of war and civilians. Our peacetime work began following the outbreak of the 1918 influenza pandemic, and we have since provided a range of health and social care services and supported the NHS since its creation in 1948. Our staff and volunteers have sprung into action when natural disasters have hit, both in the UK and overseas.

Today, the British Red Cross not only ensures that people get the help they need in a crisis but also works towards building resilient communities. We continue to assist refugees and asylum seekers, people facing loneliness or healthcare inequalities, and those affected by emergencies. In 2020, we are supporting the most vulnerable people affected by the coronavirus pandemic in the UK and around the world. With the help of our dedicated volunteers, staff and supporters, we are determined to continue spreading the power of kindness.”

Lead Curator: Mehzebin Adam
Volunteers from London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Birmingham
Cataloguing: Charlie Burns
Audio production: Digital Drama
Object photography: Karolina Heller

The Prince of Wales introduces the British Red Cross’s new online exhibition, marking the charity’s 150th anniversary.

Carrier bag made in Ethiopia from flour sacks,

British Red Cross Museum & Archives