Sharan Dhanda, Producer for Don’t Settle at Beatfreeks

Colonialism. White dominated spaces. Stereotyping. What do these have to do with heritage sites and museums? For a young person of colour… a lot.

The effects of these things are still very real for young people of colour navigating the British landscape today. They manifest in numerous ways, ranging from discrimination in the workplace, to feeling left out of stories, to seeing the commercialisation of the cultures they are made to feel different and unwelcome for, to the pressures of having to represent their communities in spaces.

Growing up in the UK, my main streams of information were schools and museums. I trusted museums to tell me about the past, tell me how previous societies lived, and to make me reflect on my existence in the present. However I sometimes felt confused and uncomfortable in these spaces that I loved so much. I didn’t see stories that related to me. I didn’t see people like me. I felt unsettled.

I trusted museums to tell me about the past… However I sometimes felt confused and uncomfortable in these spaces that I loved so much. I didn’t see stories that related to me.

In 2016, Beatfreeks ran a project called At What Cost which explored the connections between Warwick Castle, the transatlantic slave trade, and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s work on Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities from the past to modern day. We saw that this work resonated with communities of colour who had felt those stories had been excluded, but they were surprised that a project like this had happened. If heritage institutions are custodians of the past, there shouldn’t be a surprise in hearing about a history that relates to you personally.

At the same time, Beatfreeks and National Lottery Heritage Fund ran the campaign Routes2Routes which highlighted that young people of colour in Birmingham were questioning their identity in relation to their culture, and eager to turn to heritage to find answers.

Both the need for more sustainable work on inclusive narratives in heritage and the power of young people driving that inquiry and telling those stories led to our project. Don’t Settle is a three year Beatfreeks project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of the Kick the Dust Scheme. Our project empowers young people of colour aged 16-25 from Birmingham and the Black Country to change the voice of heritage through the arts, research and
governance.

Young people of colour in Birmingham were questioning their identity in relation to their culture, and eager to turn to heritage to find answers.

They work with our partners Birmingham Museums Trust, Chance Heritage Trust, Roundhouse Birmingham and Birmingham City University to challenge the heritage sector’s interactions with minoritised communities. This journey is a difficult one, and we truly appreciate how open our partner’s approaches have been towards this project – we have seen some fantastic impact already, from new youth engagement structures, to more inclusive narratives being shared in their sites.

To give true autonomy, we centre co-design and co-production in our methodology to make sustainable change in the partner organisations. The histories presented in heritage institutions should be inclusive of communities of colour and told from numerous perspectives in order to reflect our multicultural society. Through programmes and events, our cohorts interrogate and add to presented narratives, the representation in the decision making processes of heritage, and the use of heritage spaces for truly open discussion around the themes of our project.

One of the things we value most is the impact this project has on the young people that we work with:

“Being part of a project with the specific aim of delivering visible diverse stories to a traditional heritage site alone has made me feel empowered.”

“​The projects we’ve done on the Don’t Settle Programme have given me career direction, developed my skill set and provided me with experiences that will prepare me for my next role and I couldn’t have gotten to this stage without you guys and Beatfreeks as a whole.” – Dezzy, former Don’t Settle Curator

“Being part of a project with the specific aim of delivering visible diverse stories to a traditional heritage site alone has made me feel empowered. Being aware that the work we were doing was actually serving a purpose that would potentially engage a wider and more diverse group of people in collating history has really inspired me.” – Amira, former Don’t Settle Curator, current Don’t Settle Lunar Resident

“Heritage and culture would not exist without people and community so they should have a key role in its development, especially since it is often their stories we are reflecting and trying to tell.” – Rumaanah, former Don’t Settle Director

Stop settling for the margins. Stop settling. Don’t Settle.

 

Read more about the Don’t Settle project on the Beatfreeks website.

Read about what we are doing to support positive change in the sector in our Black Lives Matter Action Plan.