IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

Our Shared Cultural Heritage (OSCH) is a three-year international multi-partner programme exploring the shared cultures and histories of the UK and South Asia. OSCH in Manchester is changing policies and practices to consistently challenges stereotypes that young people don’t care about or engage with heritage. Manchester Museum offers opportunities – often paid – for young people to tackle cultural inequalities and showcase cultural heritage from diaspora perspectives. Through OSCH, young people are now embedded in the museum’s day-to-day work, from working as paid staff in the museum shop and supporting the Visitor Team with events, to being actively involved in recruitment and training. Our OSCH Young Collective has organised and delivered activities, events and workshops for their peers and communities, on topics including culture and heritage, decolonisation, racism in education, radical reading, colourism, music and poetry; and our OSCH young people are co-curators on the UK’s first permanent South Asia Gallery, in partnership with the British Museum. In this paper, I will highlight the successes and challenges of setting up youth-led projects on cultural heritage. I will draw upon the ways the OSCH programme has enabled museums and youth and heritage organisations to become better places for young people to explore identity and connect with others, changed how museums and heritage organisations engage with and represent South Asian heritage, and opened new opportunities for young people, including new routes into careers in the heritage sector.