Academics from Sheffield Hallam University will be exploring place, climate change and representation in a series of events for Being Human Festival 2022  

Press contact: Emma Griffiths | e.griffiths@shu.ac.uk

The University is one of nine universities nationally chosen to curate a series of events as part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. 

Dialogues in Flux, a series of free events inspired by humanities research led by Sheffield Hallam will start on November 10 with an event with Ark Sheffield at Sheffield and District African Caribbean Community Association (SADACCA).  

The festival will bring together people across the city to take part in creative conversations to imagine how communities might find ways to thrive together in the face of the climate crisis. 

Curator of Hallam’s programme, Amy Carter-Gordon said: “The programme is inspired by the richness and diversity of humanities research at Hallam and I wanted to reflect the vibrancy of our communities in the different events and in the partnerships that we are nurturing across the city. We aim to provide an inclusive space for new conversations to take place and for ambitious and radical solutions to be imagined.” 

Dr Yvonne Battle-Felton from Sheffield Hallam University will be hosting an event at Weston Park Museum on November 12; If These Walls Could Talk.  

The event includes a tour of the museum, a talk on its archive pieces and creative writing exercises.  

Weston Park Museum is filled with Sheffield’s memories and artefacts. The creative writing workshop, open to Black women over 40, will ask guests to reflect on how their memories and stories are reflected in the museum.  

Dr Yvonne Battle-Felton, said: “Museums and other culture and heritage sites offer windows to communities. The view from this window is often from the outside looking in. But, what changes when the view focuses on what or who is inside?  

“I’m interested in the stories people tell about themselves; the memories we create, the ways we remember and the ways we are remembered. These workshops are a chance to fill museums with our stories.” 

On November 11 and 12, Footprints in a Digital City drop-in photography workshops will take place at Abbeyfield Park and Hillsborough Park.  

Working with artist Steve Pool to create images of neighbourhoods in Sheffield, the workshop will look at our digital footprints and how they track our daily movements showing what we have done, where we have been and our relationship with the places we live.  

After both photography workshops, images created will be projected onto buildings ahead of a final event on November 14 with Dr Joan Ramon Rodriguez-Amat exploring how we share our communities, streets and cities through smartphones.   

Being Human is a celebration of humanities research through public engagement, it is led by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, the UK’s national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities.