During 2021, I ran a series of workshops in Primary schools throughout Hackney with support from artist Kirsty Reynolds. The workshops responded to newly digitised audio items at the London Metropolitan Archives, featuring recollections of Hackney residents remembering games they played in the early 1900s.
The sessions considered the value of oral history in providing multiple viewpoints and perspectives of individuals who might not otherwise appear in historical records. We explored themes relating to voices, identity and language, and students produced their own oral history recordings - submitting them to the archive for children of the future. This project collected the voices of 300+ children based in Hackney, describing their favourite games and local spaces for play.