Everyday Archaeology
Project Lead: Giles Lane
Team: Alice Angus, Orlagh Woods & Sarah Thelwall
Partners: to be confirmed
Funding: seeking funds

Outline
‘Everyday Archaeology’ is the term used by creative studio Proboscis to describe investigations of the local environment using a combination of tools and techniques created by us as part of our Social Tapestries project. Social Tapestries aims to enable people to become the co-creators of a ‘public knowledge commons’ by linking their own knowledge and experience to the local geography. In this way we hope to reveal the rich tapestry of relationships between people, places and things that exists in the local environment of everyday life. We believe that this sharing of knowledge and experience helps create new ‘cultures of listening’ – which in turn promote greater understanding and appreciation of difference.

To help us achieve this vision, Proboscis has developed a number of tools and techniques that facilitate storytelling, knowledge sharing and mapping, gathering evidence and relationship building. These tools bridge the online and offline, digital and analogue worlds in an effort to engage with a wide, intergenerational group of people.
The tools include our Urban Tapestries (UT) software platform for mapping and sharing local knowledge; the Feral Robots which detect environmental pollution and upload to the UT platform for mapping; StoryCubes which enable visual storytelling in three dimensions; and DIFFUSION eBooks, a unique publishing system that enables people to create simple downloadable paper publications. Our techniques include Bodystorming Experiences which transform abstract ideas and concepts into physical experiences enabling participants to explore new ideas in a tactile and tangible way; workshops for transferring skills and capabilities; and forums for sharing knowledge and experiences.

Approach
Each Everyday Archaeology project will excavate layers of knowledge, memory, experience and data about local environments in participation with local communities – such as schools, local residents or local action groups. Each layer excavated will build upon the others to create a rich and complex picture of the environment and the communities who inhabit it. Projects will be delivered through participatory experiences, events and workshops designed to reach across different age groups and communities. Everyday Archaeology is designed to encourage people to become scientists and archaeologists, peeling back layers of history and memory through knowledge sharing and evidence gathering – at the same time building up a rich tapestry of stories that describe the environment and community in new ways.

Goals
Proboscis intends to run a series of collaborative projects under the banner of Everyday Archaeology that help communities investigate their local environment using the tools and techniques we're developing in Social Tapestries. Our aim is to stimulate an ongoing and sustainable process of exploration of their local environment by the communities we work with, creating and sharing all kinds of new knowledge and experience as well as gathering evidence where necessary to effect action on local issues.

Projects

• Jenny Hammond Primary School Workshop, July 2006