Heritage + Utopia

Author and Contributor Bios

Elizabeth Stainforth is an Early Career Researcher in the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage, University of Leeds. Her PhD research is concerned with the potential of utopia as a critical method in the field of heritage studies: 'Utopia speaks to the study of heritage in that it opens up perspectives on the past, shedding light on the ways people hoped or imagined the future might be. Understanding how different visions of the past might inspire different types of interventions in the present and the future is an increasingly pressing issue for heritage decision making'.

Helen Graham is Director of the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and Heritage, University of Leeds. Her previous research projects include the Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities project How should heritage decisions be made?: 'One of our motivations for undertaking this project as part of the Connected Communities Festival is to address the problem of consultation – this was a key issue raised repeatedly as part of the How should heritage decisions be made? project. Consultation is usually not designed in ways which enable people to engage with the complexity of the issues, to take into account other people's needs or views or to take responsibility for the outcome. Consultation, therefore, has a range of negative effects. Not least that the views that consultation processes enable often appear thin and uninformed. As such the consultation often just exacerbates cynicism, from both decision makers and members of the public. We want to engage richer understandings, local knowledge and collective hope – pasts and futures – to develop more dynamic engagements in local democracy'. 

My Future York Team

Along with Helen and Elizabeth, the team are:

Phil Bixby - Architect and chair of York Environment Forum. Phil wants to see a more dynamic and imaginative approach to planning in York.

Richard Brigham and Lianne Brigham - Administrators for York Past and Present, a facebook group with over 12,000 members who regular share photos and memories and together represent enormous recourse of knowledge and creativity about York. 

Victoria Hoyle - City Archivist at York Explore Libraries and Archives and PhD researcher at the University of York.

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