The research process was part of a longer project (entitled More Than Oliver Twist) that aimed to demystify archival research processes and shift public attitudes to poverty in the past.

I collaborated with Mel Rye Illustration to develop The Google Arts & Culture platform that hosts the exhibition.

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I worked with researchers from each of the 6 Workhouses in the Network to create narratives from the archival material they had discovered and presented these as 6 different radio show phone-in stories.

Serving as a narrative vehicle and symbolic metaphor for the historical and social power of oral traditions, the radio device also reminds us that the past is never truly disconnected from the present.

The familiarity of the radio show format supports the aim of increasing public empathy and understanding of how multilayered, complex and relatable the experiences of the people referred to as paupers were.

In addition to transmitting intended messages, Radio waves are also a very tangible connection to and record of human history. In a poetic sense they contain the breath of our ancestors and traces of the people who came before.

The People’s Perspectives feature the responses of people in the present who were invited to reflect on historic stories that resonate with their own lived experiences in some way.

The Researcher’s Voice features representatives from the six different research teams and explores the skills and knowledge they developed working on the biographical content.

I recorded the audio during the Covid 19 pandemic and national lockdown. This was arguably a time of heightened national empathy for people surviving ill health, for incarcerated people and for people subjected to economic marginalisation.

The visuals on the site were made by Mel Rye Illustration and the photographs featured come from the 6 different workhouses in the network.

Mel Rye Illustration