Archivist Hannah and Martin Batstone (ERYC Senior Policy Officer) were delighted to show local school pupils around our virtual Archiverse Minecraft world for a fun digital history-making workshop on the 14th of June 2023.
Our theme for this workshop was ‘about me’ where we celebrated diversity via storytelling. The stories crafted in this workshop will be archived as part of the permanent historical record, becoming part of the East Riding Archives’ collections going back to the 12th Century.
Why is the capture of stories important?
The East Riding of Yorkshire has always been a culturally diverse place- e.g. Viking place names, the presence of Traveller communities, and groups who have migrated and settled in the region- yet not everyone is represented in the records.
The stories of ethnic minority communities are particularly underrepresented in the East Riding Archives’ collections which traditionally consist of the records of local government, landed estates, businesses, courts, schools, and churches. Where they are mentioned, their experiences are typically documented from the perspectives of people of authority, such as in the East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s collection and its predecessors. We want to challenge this bias by working with school pupils and community groups, sharing our diverse stories from our own perspectives.
History-Making
At the start of the workshop, Archivist Hannah showed the pupils some records from their school’s collection which are held at the East Riding Archives to provide an insight into where historical records are preserved, local history and chronological sequencing. What is absent are the personal experiences of the people depicted in these records- who are they, where are they from, what is meaningful to their lives?
With this in mind, the pupils were then unleashed into the Archiverse to craft their digital stories and build 3D models on subjects relating to their lives and communities. Each creation will be archived in both the virtual Archiverse and the real East Riding Archives!
A selection of contributions
We were delighted to work with these pupils and hear their fascinating stories. From a mosque to horse stables, each creation is now explorable to future Archiverse visitors. Their written creations are also located in the Archiverse research room where you can read more about their favourite things (cheese received a few mentions!) and their heroes, such as Allah (God). The Archives team look forward to cataloguing these contributions which will be shortly available for researchers via the archives catalogue.
Note: all photographs and images have parental / guardian consent.
This workshop was part of a wider project called “Travellers and Settlers”, a partnership project between the East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s Equality and Diversity Team, East Riding Museums and East Riding Archives. The Travellers and Settlers project seeks to understand, share and celebrate diverse stories, past and present, from underrepresented communities. Our digital history-making workshop is one branch of this wider project aimed at school pupils from a range of backgrounds.
Find out more:
- Travellers and Settlers project webpage.
- The Archiverse world.
Archives blog 