Culture Shop!
"I was bowled over - every high street should have a place like this to screen and produce digital stories. Culture Shock! never ceases to impress me and their Culture Shop! is fab. What better way of increasing digital inclusion than a drop-in like this?" - Culture Shop! visitor
As part of the delivery of the Culture Shock! project, a public screening programme was delivered in order to promote greater awareness and understanding of diverse communities in the North East to the wider North East community and of the potential of museums to make a difference.
Through support from an organisation called Northern Street Arts and Newcastle City Council the Culture Shock! project was able to secure a vacant property in Eldon Square – the biggest shopping centre in Newcastle-upon-Tyne city centre. This was done through the national Empty Shops Initiative which was launched by the Government in April 2009 in a bid to help communities use their local empty shops (and other empty spaces) by offering funding to turn them into short-term social enterprises, art displays or learning centres.
The aim of opening the shop in Eldon Square was to promote greater awareness and understanding of diverse communities in the North East by screening the digital stories collected as part of the project. The project also wanted to reach to audiences who perhaps wouldn’t necessarily visit a museum and gallery by opening up a temporary exhibition in a public space.
In just 5 days the empty shop was transformed into a cinema-style area where stories were screened. There was also a display of museum objects for visitors to explore and handle. A workshop space was also set up where one-day digital storytelling workshops took place where more stories were collected as part of the project. A series of special events were held in the space including an archive film weekend showing film footage from the collections held at the Northern Region Film and Television Archive, folk music, film making and creative writing workshops.
The shop was run by staff involved in delivering the Culture Shock! project and a team of volunteers. Many of these volunteers were participants who wanted to continue their involvement in the project through volunteering.
Over the 5 weeks the shop was open over 1500 people visited it - and many of these visitors included participants from the project which demonstrates the impact of the project and the making of digital stories on participants lives and their feelings of ownership of the project and their stories. There were also many positive comments left by visitors about the project and the stories and that the shop provided a good opportunity to take a break from their shopping and take part in something different.