‘Stand Out’ and the Importance of Heritage
In October 2022 ICRD and Arts Connect with Historic England hosted an event bringing together diverse groups of young people to showcase their involvement with heritage projects.
In this guest blog, Kenzie Chadburn from Blaze Arts in Burnley, Lancashire, reflects on the day and what heritage means to them.
‘Heritage’. What is it? Well, it can mean different things to different people. For some, it’s the intangible traditions and culture that have been passed down to them from their predecessors; for others it might be something physical that they’ve inherited from a family member upon their passing. This idea of ‘heritage’ doesn’t necessarily relate solely to an individual, because it can also describe a culture (in which case we call it ‘cultural heritage’) and, by extension, this culture could also have its own physical expression, such as special landmarks or places.
Here at Stand Out, we’re very much interested in this idea of ‘cultural heritage’, but not in the way you might anticipate; you see, the cultural heritage we’re interested in, and actively researching and pursuing, is the cultural heritage of the LGBTQ+ community (specifically the heritage we can find in our local areas, the place that we call home).
So to formally introduce the Stand Out project: we’re an LGBTQ+ based heritage project run by a team of young producers (ages 13–25), though the project was originally founded by the youth-led arts organisation Blaze Arts. The project is still in its infancy with the first official meeting having been held at Burnley Library on 7th May 2022. Our project formed in response to a suggestion made to Blaze Arts in the Autumn of 2021, by a Library Assistant at Burnley Library, that an LGBTQ+ group might be useful and beneficial in a town like Burnley.
In particular, the library assistant had drawn inspiration from the ‘Rainbow Plaque’ that was installed on the library in 2021 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first public meeting, in 1971, of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. They suggested that the group could use the plaque as a starting point for some research into the local history and queer heritage of the surrounding area. Over the following months, the director of Blaze, Helen Thackray, made this dream a reality, with the project launching in earnest the following Spring.
Myself and the other young producers have accomplished a lot over the course of the past year. We held our first exhibition on 30th July 2022, during which we published the first volume of our Zine, which details local and general queer-related history. We’ve also had the opportunity to speak with lots of inspirational people, some of whom have helped by advising us on how to move forward as a project, whilst others have allowed us to record them for our oral histories, and we’ve even be invited to a wide array of events.
Some of our future projects include our second exhibition that will be featuring in Burnley town centre on 14th January 2023, which will also mark the debut and release of the second volume of the Stand Out zine, and later in the year we’ll also be working towards hosting our own Pride event in Burnley — having undergone event management training to help us with this goal. We’ve also been lucky enough to have spoken with people such as Richard Euston (head of Chester Pride) who was gracious enough to give us a look into the behind-the-scenes workings and technical aspects of organising, managing and running a Pride event.
If any of this interests you and you’d like to find out more, then we talk about these goals and experiences in more detail in our zines, both of which we are working to upload online onto the Blaze Arts website. In the meantime, you can also check out Blaze Arts’ Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channels.
The ICRD Showcase Event
The Stand Out team were delighted to be invited to ‘Understanding the Value of Heritage: A Young People’s Showcase’ and to have the opportunity to showcase our work. Alongside us were other heritage-based groups and projects, as well as young people who personally had been involved with heritage in some way, shape or form. The event provided opportunities for discussion about the overall importance of heritage and how it can contribute to personal development, as well as young people’s health, wellbeing and sense of identity. We also considered how heritage can help us to tackle key challenges faced by society today. It was an opportunity to reflect on the past and to pave the way for a better future, whilst also making sure to cherish and pass down the memory of all that came before.
During the event, we were provided with the opportunity to give a presentation of our projects, and to share our experiences and goals with one another — but this meant that, of course, someone had to go first, and as it just so happens, we here at Stand Out were the chosen ones for this task! Our young producers talked about the work we’ve done so far, also mentioning our plans for the future and, crucially, why we’re doing it. To return to my opening paragraph, we’re interested in the cultural heritage of the LGBTQ+ community — specifically local heritage — because while it’s not too hard to find out about the global history of the LGBTQ+ community, it’s actually significantly more challenging to uncover the history that happened ‘down our street’. And with all the progress being made by the community now, it’s vital that we take a step back and look at where we’ve come from. After all, history is bound to repeat itself if we don’t learn from it, and when looking at the bigger picture it’s clear that the queer community is facing what is potentially a big turning point — but not in a good way.
If we let the past die, we let the accomplishments of the past die with it. Oppression is bound to repeat itself, but our heritage isn’t — it’s finite, and is crucial to ensuring the well-being of, well, everyone! To lose your heritage is to lose part of yourself, and it’s not an easy part to recover either — hence why we need to cherish it, preserve it and nurture it.
This sentiment and understanding is one that was shared by everyone that day, and, coming away from the experience, I’d say that was the most important part of the entire event; getting to sit in a room with a bunch of like-minded individuals, all of whom are working towards this same goal to preserve and celebrate heritage, though everyone is doing it in their own way and there’s something quite beautiful about that. In fact, I’d personally argue that the most positive thing about the event, was that the whole thing was facilitated towards making connections with people who we otherwise wouldn’t have met. However, these connections weren’t all in the form of ‘professional networking’ and ‘contacts’, in fact some of these connections were more casual and have allowed for relationships to be formed that would have actually been impossible without the event.
To round off this discussion, I’d like to finally focus on the question: how does heritage affect the present? Well, in almost every way imaginable; after all, we all have heritage, it’s one of the few threads that connects us all in this big web of life, but you’ll find that when you truly embrace it then…wow. It can open so many doors, allow for so many experiences and can change your life for the better.
I strongly recommend that you pause every once in a while: take a moment to forget about the stressful unknown of the future so that you might evaluate the present and then turn back to the past so that you may embrace it. Take pride in where you’ve come from and cherish it. It could be as simple as stopping by your local library to read about the history of the area or — as we learned from others on the day — asking a nearby farmer if they have any spare wool on hand so that you can try making something out of it, all by yourself! Value your heritage, and it might help you consider what’s been done, what can be done and what’s left to do. If it’s something you want to explore, then it can and probably will scare you at first, but you’re not alone in the endeavour. In fact, soon enough you’ll find your community; you’ll find the people who share your passion. You’ll work together, and this will be rewarding in some way or another.
Eventually, you’ll come to realise that all the work you’ve done? That’s you, creating your own heritage, by cherishing the one passed down to you by those who came before you. With this in mind, someday, in the future, someone will look at the work you’ve done, at what you’ve made, and will go through the same realisation you went through, leading to them finding their own people and to them, eventually, making their own heritage by honouring yours. So the loop goes on: when you look at all the positive things that have been talked about here, and the impact you have the potential to make… well: isn’t that thought just marvellous?
Kenzie B. Chadburn
December 2022
If you’d like to learn more about ICRD’s work with young people and heritage then check out our latest report here.
