A heritage project that connects local communities with our world-class museum collections is expanding thanks to funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Communities & Collections Fund.
Building on the award-winning Street Museum pilot, Street Museum 2 will see our museums and engagement teams work with three County Durham community centres to co-curate exhibitions shaped by local people.
Users of the community centres will be invited to choose artefacts from our 100,000-item collection across our Oriental, Archaeology and Durham Castle museums.
The chosen items will then be 3D printed to create high-quality replicas.
Project participants will also be invited to share their own personal objects - too precious to leave their possession - for 3D scanning and printing.
These will be combined with the replicas from our collection to create a special exhibition unique to each community centre, connecting their local and personal heritage with global history.
Street Museum 2 will also involve hands-on workshops, history days and museum visits for residents in the community centre locales which are recognised as being under-served.
The new funding will enable Street Museum 2 to run for the next 18-months.
Throughout that time, the initiative aims to break down cultural barriers, bring people together, and give communities a real sense of shared ownership over their heritage.
It builds on five years of successful collaboration through the original Street Museum project which connected the former East Durham mining village of Blackhall with our heritage collections.
The three County Durham community centres taking part in Street Museum 2 are Teesdale Community Resource Hub, Auckland Youth and Community Centre and Blackhall Community Centre.
Our Senior Manager for Cultural Engagement, Ged Matthews, is delighted that Street Museum 2 has received backing from the Esmée Fairbairn Communities & Collections Fund - one of the UK’s most sought-after cultural funding programmes.
He said: “We’re thrilled to be able to continue working with three of our amazing community centre partners, spread across County Durham.
“Street Museum is a great platform to bring together different types of expertise and knowledge; from heritage, collections, curation, technology, engagement, communication.
“Together, we should be able to blow the minds of communities living in Blackhall, Bishop Auckland and Teesdale!”
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