Digitally mediated encounters at the Unforgotten Lives exhibition.

Kocsis, Andrea and Ayers, Oliver (2023) Digitally mediated encounters at the Unforgotten Lives exhibition. In: DCDC 2023. Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities. Radical reimagining: interplays of physical and virtual, 11 – 13 July 2023, Durham Univeristy.

Abstract

The paper aims to evaluate the lessons from the Unforgotten Lives exhibition, a collaboration between the London Metropolitan Archives and Northeastern University London. The exhibition displays the Switching the Lens dataset, a collection of parish records mentioning people of colour in London. We designed digital tools to evoke a sense of ‘deep place’, where visitors are encouraged to consider the long-range presence of Londoners of African, Caribbean, Asian and Indigenous heritage by making connections between past and present. Three digital components, acting as contact zones, tackled this purpose in complementary ways. Firstly, an ‘Interactive Map’ in the heart of the exhibition allows users to browse the dataset, focusing on individuals and locations. Secondly, an animated Flow Map presents the routes and roots of Londoners of African, Caribbean, Asian and Indigenous heritage, showcasing the global nature of migration. Finally, a smartphone walking application encourages the visitors to interact with the indigenous heritage of London after leaving, extending the exhibit over the walls of the archives by directly exploring the city. By juxtaposing the records (material temporal), the maps (digital spatial) and the app (digital-material spatial), the visitor can experience a synthesis between different forms of encounter with their local heritage. The collaboration also reflects opportunities for partnerships. Universities with institutional infrastructure and research support can complement archives holding source material. It is an appropriate time for collaboration: many digital databases long in the making remain inaccessible or unengaging to the public. Our paper discusses the benefits and limitations of this partnership by evaluating the visitors’ engagement with our digital spaces.

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