The REACH project recently held its latest workshop, hosted by Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research. It had a wide ranging brief that, in addition to considering the REACH theme of participatory approaches, it also incorporated creative and entrepreneurial (re)-use of cultural and heritage.

A programme of speakers was developed to cover the themes of the workshop from a number of perspectives.
The morning session included Sarah Whatley (Coventry University) providing an overview of intangible cultural heritage and EU projects within the context of participatory and creative (re-)use. The next speaker, Maria Ralli (National Technical University of Athens) outlined the E-Space Portal/WITH’s federated search functionality that would enable the (re-)use of cultural content, as well as Crowd Heritage via the Crowdsourcing Platform for enriching Cultural Heritage assets. For any digitised (re-)use, it is important to consider copyright issues and this is what was covered by Charlotte Waelde (Coventry University) in her presentation of heritage sensitive intellectual property strategies for intangible cultural heritage.

The next session started with Daniel Ockeleon (Noterik) using Qandr, an interactive tool for audience participation to ask questions of attendees. He then demonstrated MuPop/the pop-up museum and showed how to enhance a museum visitor’s experience and interaction via a mobile device. The museum theme was considered in a more traditional way, as Graham Black (Nottingham Trent University) described museums in the age of participation and the deliberations of institutions evaluating how to attract modern audiences. The final presentation of the morning was from Sally Hartshorne (University of Leicester) who provided stories of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter and described how places and spaces could be creatively (re)-used and their past highlighted to inform both residents and visitors.

The afternoon began with Richard Tomlins (Coventry University) providing an energetic demonstration of sprinting the creative economy and how he had worked with different groups to disrupt their thinking and challenge them to consider new approaches and solutions. Next was Dom Breadmore (Ludic Rooms) who showcased the work of his small organisation within the cultural heritage sector (including links to Coventry: UK City of Culture 2021) by discussing open citizens: postdigital participation through play. The final presenter within this entrepreneurial themed session was Antonella Fresa (Promoter) who described the important role that DigitalMeetsCulture, the online cultural heritage magazine ,plays within the heritage sector for sharing news, raising awareness and building partnerships.

The day was considered to have been a great success, with themes of (re-)use, creativity, entrepreneurship and participation presented in a number of ways, each providing attendees and the REACH project with further areas for discussion.