Impact case study database

The AHRC review of the project commended “an incredibly impressive ‘pathways to impact’ structure”. We set out to address several key audiences: exhibition goers, curators, artists, material scientists, school children and teachers. Instead of seeing the Victorian telegraph as a quaint and antique technology, we challenged each of these target groups to re-encounter its world-changing and world-making potential at the start of our digital world.

Transforming public perceptions. We used our research on the Victorian period to demonstrate the complex ways in which technological innovation has shaped culture and is in turn shaped by culture. At the free public launch event of the project at KCL’s arts festival in 2014, we spliced a cable underwater (c50 attendees). At the other end of the project, we used our research to change the perspectives of 8,253 individual exhibition goers at the Victorians Decoded: Art and Telegraphy free public exhibition at the Guildhall Gallery (Sept 2016–Jan 2017). We chose the Guildhall because of its exceptional permanent collection of Victorian painting. Using the methodology developed in our research sessions, we brought together telegraphic equipment from the Wheatstone archive and elsewhere, art and specially designed objects. This was a sophisticated but easily accessible exhibition that asked the public to look differently at Victorian genre painting in the light of ‘the telegraphic imaginary’ using our four themes: distance, transmission, coding and resistance.

Exhibition-goers (from the UK, the Netherlands, Lithuania, the US, France, Spain, Hong Kong, Canada and Luxembourg) reported a transformed understanding of the two-way relationship between technology and culture: it “heightened my understanding of how tech shapes culture and art”; “The Leighton painting and ideas about touch and transmission really shaped how I think about art/science and how we communicate with each other”. The exhibition created high levels of engagement on social media, for example: “Great #victoriansdecoded exhibition … intrigued with attempts to create coding for ease and privacy” and “fascinated how disrupted comms and secret codes infiltrated art” [A]. The Gallery were particularly pleased by the 440% uplift in engagement on their Facebook pages. Exhibition reach was achieved partly through the free open-access online catalogue, which ensured our research changed views beyond the duration and locale of the exhibition. Between Sept. 2016 and June 2019, it was downloaded 14,000 times and has had international impact, eg a university academic in Sweden who could not visit the London exhibition writes that the online catalogue “has significantly influenced both my research and teaching” and that he has used this freely-available resource with students because it “provides an innovative approach to multidisciplinary research” [C].

The media recognised that the exhibition opened up new ways of demonstrating the relationship between technology and culture. A reviewer on Litro Magazine said: “I found it a fresh and interesting way of forcing visitors to the exhibition to look at an idea from the points of view of multiple different disciplines”. Apollo Magazine (readership: 30,000) praised this “compact, playful” exhibition for using new methodology to bring together the conceptual and material elements of technology: “[b]y setting the relics of telegraphic technology in the context of 19th-century painting, what this exhibition suggestively shows is that telegraphic messages were transmitted by a medium that was as conceptual as it was material”. The Guardian (readership: 1,027,000) praised the exhibition for making new connections between art and science: “We do not tend to think of Edwin Landseer or James Tissot in connection with galvanometers and transmitters, yet they certainly lived within and responded to this changing world. The exhibition has been created through a suitably Victorian collaboration of art, science and engineering” [B].

Changing practice in major London cultural insitutions. Before our project, technology and art were often baldly juxtaposed in museums and galleries with little theoretical connective tissue. King’s researchers intervened and changed curatorial and exhibitionary practice in some major museums. The commissioning curator at the Guildhall Gallery, now Director of the Geffrye Museum, described Victorians Decoded as “a ground-breaking exhibition for the Gallery”’ because of its “cross-disciplinary content that used painting as a lens through which to explore technological developments”. She highlighted that King’s research had pushed her team “to work in new ways”, “erod[ing] traditional boundaries between art and science” [H]. The Chief Curator agreed that the collaboration “brought a whole new perspective to our collection at the Guildhall Art Gallery. It was a fantastic experience for our curatorial staff as it enabled them to see the paintings with fresh eyes and to consider new interpretations linking to science, technology and empire …. [The] innovative exhibition… reached new audiences… and it has resulted in enduring cross-sector relationships” [H]. Head Curator of the Sherlock Holmes exhibition at the Museum of London, which attracted more than 82,000 visitors, said: “[t]he research findings of the Scrambled Messages project helped to inform sections of the display that examined the representation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century metropolis and the way that a number of new technologies were seeping their way into modern life” [H]. Subsequently, Pettitt was invited onto the Academic Advisory Board of the Museum of London and has been involved in planning content for the new Smithfield site museum. Head of Collections and Principal Curator at the Science Museum London said: “Scrambled Messages provided new insights into the relationship between communications heritage and its culture, showing how important it is to understand intertwining of artistic and scientific work. The exhibition and website were a rich resource for exploring the creativity of our Victorian ancestors, but also challenging the separation of art and science today”. According to the Head of Collections, our exhibition based on King’s research had a major effect on Science Museum London programming by providing the inspiration for the 2019 Science Museum exhibition, The Art of Innovation, accompanied by a book and Radio 4 series [H]. The exhibition, therefore, influenced the subsequent practice of several major museums and embedded new research-curatorial links for the future.

Changing the practice of artists and material scientists through deployed historical research. Before our project, artistic practice around digital comms was largely focused on the present. We changed this, making available our research to change the practices of digital artists by focusing them on the technological past. We invited the contemporary artists’ collective, Random International (RI) (known for Rain Room, exhibited at MoMA), to join our project. A dramaturg at RI said she found “a striking synergy” between our thinking and their “ongoing exploration of the human condition in an increasingly mechanised world” and together we tracked the “quotidian changes and nuanced developments in the relationship between human and machine”. We have published an exchange between our project and the RI artists in the form of a dialogue as a chapter in our book, Coding and Representation [D], explaining our joint mission “not to work with technology as such, but with the consequences of technology and its applications … the ways that technology increasingly impacts on our emotional and instinctive states” [D].

Simultaneously, we changed the practice of material scientists, using our research to enable them to move beyond instrumental views of materials and technologies to consider them in the widest cultural context. Our interdisciplinary seminars run by an academic at the Institute of Making, UCL, took applied scientists, as one of them said, “far beyond the world of materials research and engineering … this was such an eye-opening project. Working with specialists in Art History, Archaeology and English Literature really made clear to me the far-reaching effects that the materials and technologies we develop and design with can have on literature, art and the creative imagination” [G]. Our project affected the design of subsequent projects at the Institute of Making and established new sustainable research links between engineering and humanities faculties. In the run-up to Victorians Decoded, we organised a competition for architecture/engineering students to design and build a scientifically conceived but creatively orientated machine for the exhibition. A student at the Bartlett School of Architecture was the winner with her Great Grammatizor: a ‘steampunk’ machine that converts text input into randomised poems, which print out on a piece of paper to be taken away by the visitor. She said that: “the competition has been kind of life changing for me”, as before she had been “doing a few codes and building a few things on my own” but the project gave her “the space to explore my ideas and turn them into something real” [G]. The Guardian wrote that “the Victorians would certainly have loved the Great Grammatizor, which will scramble and code messages from the public into eccentric poems” [B]. The machine takes its name from Roald Dahl’s story, ‘Someone Like You’, and proved particularly popular with a media-conscious younger audience. A quarter of respondents to the exhibition questionnaire were aged 16–25 and were enthusiastic about trying it out [A]. A 10-year-old visitor wrote,“ The Great Grammatizor is extremely fun! The poems it comes up with are inventive and quirky, unlike any others. It made my mind boggle.”[A]

Empowering young people and transforming practices in classrooms. Our school activities changed pedagogic perceptions of technical and thinking skills as separate and supported a move towards cross-curricular learning. Teachers recognised, for example, that alongside the coding in our KS2 exercise, “[t]here was a bit of history, a bit of detective genre and lots of interaction”. We transformed children’s perception of history, technology and, crucially, the relationship between these (the contingency of technology on culture; the relevance of the past in the present). We reached c150 children through a school takeover day at the exhibition and in-school testing (in comprehensive coastal schools) of primary, GCSE and A-Level materials [F]. The materials were downloaded 3000 times between Sept. 2016 and June 2019, reaching many more pupils.

At primary level, King’s researchers developed a KS2 English pack on telegrams that drew on our research on coding and asked children to code and decode the messages in ‘Sherlock Holmes’ stories using Morse code.The activity spoke to contemporary experience, which teachers welcomed: “We talked about imagining having to pay £1 for every word and how short we'd make our texts”; “I also referred to Twitter which has a word limit so you have to really be clear which words you select”. A teacher praised the pack for “motivating” even the lower-attaining children to think with its ‘blended learning’ approach. One enthusiastic teacher planned to use the materials in “other forms across the school next year … Can do in Yr 3, 5 and 6!” [F]. Because they are freely available online, the materials are not limited to school-use: one exhibition-goer thought they would be “a useful resource” for “[m]y grandchildren [who] are being home-educated” [A].

At secondary level, we developed two KS4 English packs for GCSE students entitled ‘ The Sign of Four: Place and Communication’ and ‘Nineteenth-Century Literature: “Hole in the Wall” and Responses to Technology’, which address National Curriculum statutory requirements and GCSE assessment objectives. KCL research into how new technologies produce a new sense of place, and research into the engineering of new forms of attention through technology, underpin these. The Sign of Four asks students to trace communications within the text and think about the development of modern communications in Britain from the 19th century. The ‘Hole in the Wall’ uses an 1866 description of visiting a railway signal box to create a discussion around the embedding of new technologies into ordinary life and the new kinds of attention/distraction they create. A teacher reported that “the feedback was positive and the students engaged with the extracts and were able to respond, developing ideas and extending the modelled paragraph. The pictures worked well and they provoked some good discussion and greater understanding of the Victorian/Industrial contexts for the text” [F]. We also devised teaching packs for GCSE and A-Level Art based around paintings featured in our exhibition [F].

In November 2016, we ran a takeover day at the exhibition in partnership with the charity Kids in Museums. Sixth formers from Trinity Catholic High School, Woodford Green, came in for workshops and then ‘took over’ the gallery space for a day. The Gallery Curator said the takeover day “aim[ed] to empower students”, and their Art teacher said: “[t]here is immense value and importance of getting school students from all kinds of backgrounds involved early with galleries, museums and out of the classroom to encounter big ideas about culture. Our day at ‘Victorians Decoded’ really stimulated our pupils to reflect on history, art, and their own use of communications media”. The day was reported in the Ilford Recorder [E].

Drawing on research findings about gaps in representations of Rwanda and the need for more Rwandan-authored narratives to deepen understandings of the country’s difficult past and complex present, KCL-initiated collaborative projects have supported Rwandan voices and changed local and international perceptions of Rwanda’s past through the Arts.

Photography: capacity building with photographers, enriching audience perceptions.

KCL research shows there is a lack of internationally circulating Rwandan-authored photography and that this curtails understanding of the genocide and its legacies today [1,6]. To address this, between 2014 and 2019 KCL engaged in a range of collaborations with photographers and cultural institutions to identify the reasons why this is the case and design interventions to address these underlying needs. These interventions facilitated photographers acquiring technical knowledge and new conceptual frameworks alongside access to international networks and new audiences. As a result, audiences have engaged with more complex representations of Rwanda and their perceptions of previously dehumanised groups became ‘more human’. These projects supported the professionalisation of the Arts in Rwanda, leading to the longer-term viability and visibility of Rwandan-authored images. There have been 10 projects in this area, the following are highlights.

In November 2013, in response to the identification of limited technical skills and networks as key needs driving the lack of internationally-circulating Rwandan photography, Norridge convened a workshop in Kigali in collaboration with UK-based human rights and photography organisation Autograph ABP. The 10 participants reported increased technical proficiency and a newfound sense of artistic community: “I spent over seven years struggling with aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Now I understand how they work together to give me what I want”; “This was a rare opportunity [for photographers] to meet, share experiences and learn”. The photographers maintain this network, sharing knowledge, contacts and feedback. One, Jean Bizimana, decided to become a professional photographer as a result of the workshop: “Dr Zoe’s work made me who I am: from being an orphan who doesn’t matter to being a well-respected photographer” [A].

Images from this workshop and two further KCL initiatives were shown at an AHRC-funded exhibition in the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, curated by Zoe Norridge (KCL) and Mark Sealy MBE (Autograph ABP). This exhibition addressed perceptions of Rwandans as less than human, generated by reductive press coverage during the genocide and enduringly problematic representational tropes afterwards, offering little understanding of Rwandan culture and agency [1]. Rwanda in Photographs: Death Then, Life Now challenged these prejudices by showcasing Rwandan creativity. Seen by 5,000 visitors and gaining international media coverage, it was the only group show of Rwandan-authored photography for the 20th anniversary of the genocide. Press comments included: “Too often the country is reduced to images of violence and death, as seen through the eyes of outsiders. For this exhibition, Rwandans have challenged this gaze and now show us their country through their own eyes” ( The British Blacklist); “Three cheers for an exhibition that is ordinary. Applause is deserved because it’s about an African country but it’s not about starvation, malnutrition, refugees, conflict, famine or environmental catastrophe” ( Oneworld); “Each photographer offers their own unique insight into Rwanda” ( Londonist) [B]. Quantitative data was collected from exhibition visitors in collaboration with social psychologist Keon West (Goldsmiths). Drawing on infrahumanisation measures developed by Leyens et al (2001), researchers measured the extent to which visitors perceived Rwandans as less than human before and after viewing the photographs. The results showed that after visiting the exhibition, participants saw Rwandans as statistically significantly ‘more human’ [C].

The accompanying event series extended this impact. KCL engaged with the Rwandan diaspora and High Commission through a commemoration ceremony and reception that brought the community into King’s. Speaker events in the exhibition space connected artists across disciplines and provided a means for participants, who included three Rwanda-based photographers, to extend their networks. In addition, a workshop with photo editors from international NGOs, photo agencies and media outlets addressed the question of why international organisations consistently commissioned foreign photographers to work in Rwanda. Mark Sealy MBE explains: “This workshop brought together key cultural gatekeepers who went on to shape a significant shift in working practices for NGOs and media outlets who now increasingly commission local photographers from African countries. The workshop provided a space for conversations that contributed to NGOs making policy changes to support this transformation in the sector” [D].

This set of interventions demonstrated how research insights combined with needs identification led to collaborative interventions (workshop and exhibition) that generated change for specific groups (Rwandan photographers, UK exhibition visitors, commissioning editors), addressing the original research insight (lack of Rwandan imagery). Subsequent interventions have focused on early phases of this cycle, using research to address artistic needs.

Two workshops in 2015 and 2019 addressed Rwandan photographers’ collaboratively-identified need to expand their aesthetic languages to explore loss [2,6] and human rights, in order to extend their artistic practice and access fields where they had previously been absent [1, 6].

Material produced for the Rwanda in Photographs exhibition focused on changing perceptions of the present rather than on revisiting history, but King’s research also shows that creative explorations of the past help with processing and humanising the ongoing cost of genocide [2,3]. In interviews, artists explained they were still seeking new visual languages to explore their personal stories, a finding confirmed in King’s research on use of symbolism in Rwandan photography [1]. To address this, King’s participated in the AHRC network Children of Political Violence, connecting artists in Rwanda and Argentina, a country with an internationally-recognised arts scene. In 2015, Norridge convened a workshop in Gisenyi (Rwanda) with mentoring from Lucila Quieto (Argentina) for four Rwandan photographers who lost their parents as children. South-South dialogue about symbolic languages of loss enabled photographers to explore their personal stories for the first time. All participants reported a paradigm shift in their conception of photography’s potential. Gadi Habumugisha commented: “I used to take pictures that other people and NGOs wanted me to take. But this time it was different. I had to create things in my mind and then take the photographs. When I saw Lucila’s images I learnt that I can create something in me and then show it. I took pictures about absence, what I felt growing up in the orphanage, what the orphanage was like and the community there” [E]. These impacts endure in their practice today.

With increasing numbers of Rwandan photographers working professionally, KCL’s later collaborative workshop in Kigali in 2019 addressed a specific need for more literacy in human rights cultures, the focus of many international funding calls in the region. Facilitated by Billy Kahora (Kenya), Sarah Waiswa (Uganda) and Liz Hingley (UK), this brought together 8 photographers and 6 writers. Participants reported: increased understanding of international conceptions of human rights, greater confidence when conceptualising projects and applying for funding and realisation of the potential for the arts to open up new conversations in Rwanda’s relatively restricted political sphere. One commented: “I had paid little attention to how pictures can convey powerful messages in terms of human rights cultures. This workshop opened my eyes and made me look at pictures differently” [F]. Since the workshop, 4 photographers obtained human rights related grants. One writer, Alain-Jules Hirwa, published two related pieces, finished a poetry collection on human rights and founded Tea House, a new literary magazine, saying: “I realized that, if we want to tell our own stories, we should have platforms that understand us” [F].

The 2014 exhibition professional stakeholder workshop underlined that for photography to develop as a sustainable sector in Rwanda (ensuring wider circulation of Rwandan-authored images) regional and international appreciation for Rwandan photography needed building. Since 2018, King’s has collaborated with Jacques Nkinzingabo’s Kigali Center for Photography. Norridge programmed 7 multi-partner events and designed the website for the Center’s first Kigali Photo Fest in 2019 [G], which connected local and international audiences with photography from Rwanda and the rest of Africa. Artists and public attendees deepened their understanding of photography in the region. FOCUS magazine commented: “After the controversy over the absence of African artists at the 50th anniversary of the Rencontres d’Arles [the world’s most prestigious photography festival], the Kigali Photo Fest throws down the gauntlet to those curators and European experts who claimed last June that they ‘were unable to identify new networks and seemed to always be talking to the same esoteric set of people on the continent’” [G].

Testimony: extending circulation of Rwandan survivor voices through translation.

In 2019, KCL, in collaboration with Rwandan publisher Huza Press, brought a key Rwandan survivor testimony to new audiences for the first time through translation – increasing Rwandan and international understandings of the personal cost of genocide. King’s research established the importance of survivor voices for conveying compelling and nuanced narratives about Rwanda’s complex past [1,3,4]. However, many early survivor testimonies were published in French and Rwanda has changed languages to favour English. Rwandans who grew up in exile in Anglophone countries, and the new generation of young people educated in English, are unable to access key texts about their past. Lack of testimonies in translation also meant that students in Anglophone countries were encountering Rwanda through accounts by visiting outsiders.

Norridge changed this by translating Mukagasana’s La mort ne veut pas de moi (1997), the first survivor testimony to be published after the genocide, as Not My Time to Die (2019). This translation project had a significant impact on Mukagasana herself who clarified how and why she wrote the French edition two decades earlier and collaborated on updates including a new Afterword [H]. Publisher Huza Press commented: “[This] translation has been our most successful publication to date in terms of distribution reach, publicity and sales (with close to 2000 copies sold so far world-wide). The new networks that publishing this book has built for us are important not just for reaching audiences with this particular title, but in enabling us to build a wider platform for Rwandan voices more broadly” [H]. Artists who participated in the production (Burundian photographer Chris Schwagga, Ugandan writer Doreen Baingana and Kenyan copyeditor Otieno Owino) and dissemination (Ishyo Arts Director Carole Karemera), also benefited from strengthening regional artistic networks. As a result, Anglophone Rwandans were able to read a key literary testimony for the first time and audiences were able to encounter Mukagasana and her testimony through events and media coverage in Rwanda, the UK, Nigeria (Aké Festival), Kenya and South Africa [H]. Anglophone educators are also now able to teach this foundational Rwandan-authored testimony [H].

Education: extending reach of Rwandan survivor testimony into schools.

KCL’s ongoing collaboration with the Ishami Foundation has facilitated the use of survivor testimony in materials and events, providing new ways for educators to share Rwanda’s history through local perspectives and enriching teacher and student understandings of the past and its relevance. In 2017 Norridge was elected Chair of the majority-Rwandan trustee board and works closely with Rwandan survivor-founder and CEO Eric Murangwa Eugene MBE. Intertwined with her research into the importance of Rwandan survivor accounts, the organisation’s mission is to “draw on genocide survivor experience to connect us all to our common humanity”. KCL and Ishami Foundation have:

• Written, designed and circulated educational materials about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi for teachers and students across the UK, foregrounding Rwandan survivor testimony collected as part of Ishami trustee Jo Ingabire’s 100 Stories project [I].

• Increased personal engagement with genocide for teachers and students from 25 London schools participating in Ishami’s 25 Schools for Kwibuka 25 campaign, which included a workshop and commemoration with survivors and the Mayor of London at City Hall in 2019 [I].

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan wrote to commend the organisation on this “vital and moving event”, asserting that: “Remembering the lives lost by genocide and standing in solidarity with survivors is hugely important, not only in honouring the memory of those who died and acknowledging the experience of their surviving relatives, but also teaching future generations about the past and inspiring them to pursue unity in the present day” [I]. Evaluation forms and pupil pledges show this work helped schools understand the contemporary relevance of genocide and motivated students and teachers to commit to taking action to tackle prejudice [I] .

Radio: building international understanding between Rwandans and BBC Radio listeners.

Public perceptions of Rwanda are beset by forgetting and obfuscation. 53% of the UK population cannot name a genocide since the Holocaust and there is a long history of Western attitudes towards Rwanda being shaped by media simplifications, mis-information, prejudice and genocide denial (Thompson, 2007). By contrast King’s research has explored the complexity of memory practices and of the multiple groups involved in rebuilding Rwanda after genocide [3,4]. Named a BBC AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2012, Norridge has bridged gaps between public and academic knowledge, fostering intercultural understanding between the UK and Rwanda [J]. Highlights include a discussion about the Tate exhibition Conflict, Time, Photography (2014) where she stressed the need for local photography, and a debate with Phil Clark about the strengths and shortcomings of the BBC’s Black Earth Rising (2018) (both Radio 3 Free Thinking). In 2013–14, Norridge wrote and presented a 45-minute Radio 3 Sunday feature Living with Memory in Rwanda. This research-based documentary addressed the contribution of survivor testimonies, commemoration practices, memorials, legal processes and artistic interventions to the creation of collective memory in Rwanda. Named The Spectator’s “most heart-stopping moment on air” for 2014, it won a Gold Award at the New York Radio Festival. In 2019, Norridge presented Rwanda’s Returnees, a 30-minute, AiB Award Shortlisted, Radio 4 documentary based on her research about the significant contributions made by artists returning from the diaspora to shape contemporary Rwandan culture [4]. These programmes enabled a rebuilding of trust between the BBC and Rwanda after the broadcast of Rwanda: The Untold Story, widely criticised for genocide denial (Melvern, 2020), as shown by the granting of a media permit to Norridge in 2019 when the BBC Kinyarwanda service had been shut down and reporters refused access. The Rwandan High Commission commented: “Such a programme, drawing on careful long-term research and Rwandan experiences, resonated with both Rwandans in the diaspora and at home, and went some way towards restoring trust between Rwandans and the BBC” [J].

S400 culminated in a London-wide celebration of the Shakespeare Quatercentenary across 2016. King’s research directly influenced and informed consortium partners’ creative outputs, helping demystify Shakespeare for new audiences, innovate across media, express Shakespeare’s local and global impact, change public perceptions of the value of Shakespeare for today’s culture and tangibly enhance the practice of partner organisations [B,C]. Given King’s’ location, our existing relationships with key partners and our recognition that Quatercentenary events would emerge organically in Stratford and other UK and global locations, it felt appropriate to focus our consortium on London – although, in the event, S400 impact had a broader geographical reach.

Reinvigorating engagement with Shakespeare: cultural organisations and their publics With our cultural partners, we reinvigorated public engagement with Shakespeare by refocusing attention on the intersection between Shakespeare’s life, the era in which he wrote and the full range of his works, dramatic and poetic. We challenged the ‘heritage’ approach by rethinking Shakespeare’s legacies in new and living contexts for a substantive local and global audience.

Two exhibitions were at the heart of the S400 programme. King’s research in textual, cultural and theatrical scholarship underpinned both, informing choices of document and object for display and discussion. The exhibition By Me William Shakespeare: A Life in Writing, a collaboration and co-curation with the Head of Early Modern Records at The National Archives (TNA) featuring documents including Shakespeare’s will, emerged directly from King’s research. She stated that King’s research brought “significant original knowledge to the development of [the exhibition] narrative”, determining the stories told and the items displayed, thus directly increasing audiences’ access to knowledge. She noted that “McMullan, Munro and Crawforth’s research was pivotal to the interpretation of the documents and to the structure of the exhibition, […] shaping our understanding of the establishment of the Globe, the controversy over Essex’s rebellion, the social and poetic ramifications of Shakespeare’s involvement in the Bellot and Mountjoy affair, the significance of the spectacle described in the Lord Chamberlain’s book and the context of the production of the plays listed in the Audit Office books”. She reported that TNA asked the 7,030 exhibition visitors to rate their levels of knowledge about Shakespeare both before and after visiting the exhibition, showing that there was an average 26% increase in knowledge across the audience, with one audience group (‘cultural Londoners’) increasing their knowledge on average by 45% [D]. TNA practice has been directly and positively affected by this experience due to developing new levels of confidence in innovation and public engagement. The Head of Early Modern Records stated that the identification of new visitor groups resulted in new funding being directed to TNA’s exhibition and engagement strategy, marking an important strategic shift [D].

The BL’s exhibition Shakespeare in Ten Acts was also directly underpinned by King’s research. Massai, McMullan and Munro were members of the exhibition advisory board, providing input into planning and content for display, and their individual research directly informed specific sections of the exhibition. The exhibition was “the second most highly rated of all BL exhibitions” since the current BL opened (91% average enjoyment rating), second only to their Harry Potter exhibition, attracting 33,956 visitors, with over 8,000 being first-time visitors to the BL. Reviews celebrated the exhibition as “a show of shows guaranteed to disarm even the most jaded visitor” ( TLS) and as “A hit. A palpable hit!” [historiamag.com]. The BL lead curator noted that King’s research “help[ed] to determine the Library’s approach to controversial and disputed areas of scholarship”, adding that “[McMullan, Massai and Munro’s] advice helped us to ensure that our interpretation was accurate and up-to-date and that our overarching narrative was fresh, compelling and soundly based on scholarship. This is especially true of the sections of the exhibition which they worked on most closely and the corresponding chapters they wrote for the exhibition book” [H]. Co-edited by McMullan and the BL curator, this book included chapters by Massai, McMullan and Munro, sold 5,234 copies (significantly more than is normal for a BL exhibition book) and was shortlisted for the Society for Theatre Research Book Award 2016.

Engagement with King’s research through membership of the S400 consortium increased audiences for partner organisations and demonstrated the value of researcher/artist collaboration: “Globe events received a substantial increase in attendance because of […] S400” (Director of Education, Globe) [C]; “the success of S400 has been in the development of formal and informal links with other creative institutions across London [and] has already sparked further fruitful collaborations” (Head of Culture and Learning, BL) [E]; “partnership with King’s was very important to us, an experiment in how academics and artists can work closely together to make artworks stemming from research and respond to it creatively” (Head of Artists’ Moving Image, Film London) [G]. Moreover, partner organisations continue to collaborate as a result of S400: the Globe now collaborates with the Royal Collection Trust as a direct outcome of S400; Film London’s Head of Artists’ Moving Image stated that “being part of the S400 consortium allowed us to get to know representatives of key cultural organisations. Those contacts and networks are of great importance to us” [G]; the BL’s Head of Culture and Learning noted that after BL staff were “introduced to colleagues at Shakespeare’s Globe by academic staff at King’s”, they “struck up a good working relationship with Globe Education which led to jointly-run learning workshops” [E].

Demonstrating the significance of Shakespeare for contemporary cultural production/stimulating new creativity inspired by Shakespeare Collaboration between King’s academics and cultural partners generated innovation across media and productive intersections between research on Shakespeare and contemporary creative practice, notably in poetry and animated film. King’s research inspired cultural organisations to work in new ways, drawing directly and creatively on the Shakespearean past and commissioning boldly in the present, inspiring artists to reimagine Shakespearean creativity and to innovate in their own practice.

On Shakespeare’s Sonnets was a major collaboration created by Crawforth and Scott-Baumann with the RSL, Arden Bloomsbury and the British Council. Together they commissioned 37 new poems by RSL poets responding to Shakespeare’s sonnets – published as On Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A Poets’ Celebration (2016) – and a subsequent set of global readings and schools workshops (see ‘Sprung from Shakespeare’ below). The RSL Director noted that the collaboration “informed a broader change in the way the RSL works between commissioning, event programming and working with research; the positive experience of collaborating with a range of partners and gaining the benefit of academic expertise has emboldened our approach to commissioning, and we have now increased the number – and diversified the forms – of publications we produce annually. This project demonstrated how academic researchers, publishers and writers can come together to produce efficiently organised, wide-reaching, intellectually rigorous and creatively stimulating work for live audiences and readers for years to come” [F]. The collection reached fourth-bestselling poetry anthology on amazon.co.uk and the poems featured on Poetry on the Underground posters, were recorded by the Poetry Archive, formed a key element of the British Council’s 2016 Shakespeare Lives season and received positive and extensive coverage in the media from the UK to Asia [B]. Reviewers noted in particular the generative power of Shakespeare in the present, applauding the editors for demonstrating his continued role as inspiration for new creativity. The Independent noted that “it really is extraordinary that these sonnets, first published in 1609, can still be engendering such a range of new ideas and ways of expressing them”, while the Daily Mail observed that “[t]his exciting collection reminds us that themes of ageing, love, lust and emotional cruelty transcend time”.

King’s’ collaboration with Film London for ‘Still Shakespeare’ resulted in a series of innovative short animations directly informed by Barnden’s research and shown globally at festivals in numerous locations from Mexico to Ukraine, one winning prizes at festivals in Britain and the United States in 2018. Film London’s Head of Artists’ Moving Image described ‘Still Shakespeare’ as “a hugely successful experiment in creative collaboration between artists and academics[, producing films] of the highest quality and gaining critical acclaim internationally” and noted that “the five artists formed a close working relationship with Barnden” and “valued her expertise and the opportunity to share her knowledge”; she noted that, through the collaboration, the “research found a creative output that enabled it to reach beyond the academic circle” [G].

Democratising access to Shakespeare/demonstrating Shakespeare’s local and global significance Shakespeare is often viewed both as a writer whose work is for a privileged few and as a specifically British writer, especially in London where his name and work are a key part of the heritage offer for tourists. Through S400 we used our research to help extend democratic access to Shakespeare locally and globally both by demonstrating Shakespeare’s worldwide significance and by demystifying his work so as to make it accessible to as wide a range of people as possible.

At the local level, Crawforth and Scott-Baumann’s work on the connection between Shakespeare’s sonnets and contemporary poetry led to Sprung from Shakespeare, a Widening Participation programme offering workshops for teachers and pupils at 13 inner London schools with low university entrance rates, reaching a total of 529 students. A schools’ poetry competition attracted 40 submissions, concluding with an event at which the awardees read their sonnets alongside two major contemporary poets (the winning participant, noting that she had assumed poetry competitions were for more privileged individuals, reported that her success “gave me the confidence to enter another free competition and I was shortlisted [for the] Keats-Shelley Prize”). Subsequently, these activities led to the Shakespeare Academy, run by Crawforth, reaching 1600 pupils across 10 London state schools. Responses from a typical Year 11 workshop showed 100% agreeing they ‘learned something new’ and 75% agreeing that the event had ‘influenced their critical thinking about Shakespeare’ and that they ‘understood more about the contexts for Shakespeare’ and felt ‘more confident about their knowledge of Shakespeare’; in one Year 9 workshop, 75% ‘learned something new’ and learned ‘more about Shakespeare’s context’, and 68% felt ‘more confident about their knowledge of Shakespeare’ [I].

At the global level, King’s research – notably Massai’s work on global Shakespeare – helped partners demonstrate Shakespeare’s generative worldwide reach. The BL’s Head of Culture and Learning commented that the “global outlook” Massai brought into the BL’s exhibition planning, informing advance marketing, helped “account for the fact that ‘Shakespeare in Ten Acts’ attracted a higher number of overseas visitors than is normally the case for BL exhibitions”, with visitors commenting positively on discovering the ‘worldwide’ reach of Shakespeare both now and in the past [E]. The Barbican’s S400 season drew on Massai’s research on global Shakespeare and also on the work of director Ivo Van Hove for support activities for their productions of Van Hove’s Kings of War and of the indigenous Australian King Lear adaptation, The Shadow King [H]. The overall reach of S400 extended far beyond London: on 23 April 2016, #Shakespeare400 was the top trend on Twitter (including new contributions and retweets) for the whole of the UK (8,387,138) and throughout 2016 there was extensive national and international media attention [B].

Crawforth and Scott-Baumann’s collaboration with the RSL, On Shakespeare’s Sonnets, demonstrating the connections between the sonnets and contemporary poetry, became the focus for the British Council’s global Sonnet Exchanges programme, which included readings by poets in over 16 countries from Armenia to South Korea, generating new poetic creativity and increasing global awareness of the contemporary generativity of Shakespearean poetry.

The S400 MOOC, Shakespeare: Print and Performance, led by Lewis (FutureLearn with King’s, the BL and Shakespeare’s Globe) ran four times (2016–20), reaching 19,000 participants across 120 countries. The most geographically far-reaching S400 collaboration, the MOOC engaged a socially diverse audience both locally and globally. It emerged directly from King’s research on textual, cultural, stylistic and theatrical issues and embodied our key external partnerships with the BL and Globe. Participants praised the MOOC for demonstrating Shakespeare’s global significance – “I am much more aware of the global impact of his work” – and for demystifying and democratising Shakespeare: 73% agreed that ‘this course has changed the way I think about Shakespeare’s works’, and individual participants commented as follows: “I have always been taught that Shakespeare was only for the rich or extremely clever people: this is not so – it is open to everyone”; “I can’t even begin to tell you how it has changed me, apart from saying that my thoughts and understanding have undergone a sea change”; “as a teacher, I will use some of these lessons to introduce Shakespeare in my classrooms” and teach “what I have just learnt, which is very different from what is taught at school”; “the things I’ve learned [...] have seeped into my bones and carved grooves in my brain that were not there before” [J].

Prior to this project, the First World War was largely remembered as an all-white European combat on the Western Front. King’s researchers changed this by including the contribution of 4 million non-white troops in popular television and radio programmes, public lectures, large-scale symposiums, exhibitions, concerts, dance-theatre and newspaper articles.

Changing the colour of war memory in the media and public sphere

Our project coincided with both the centenary of the First World War and a period of rising nationalism and xenophobia. We intervened to shape the commemorations of the war, challenging the all-white narratives and bringing widescale attention to the role of non-white combatants, particularly South Asians, in contributing to the much-vaunted heroism of the British military.

We changed the practice of media professionals in the UK by moving the BBC’s dominant focus on British Tommies on the Western Front to the Middle East, Persia and East Africa. In 2013, Das was appointed as historical adviser to the BBC for its centenary coverage, including the acclaimed BBC2 documentary The World’s War in August 2014, with sections based on Das’s research. Showcasing the experiences of Asian, West Indian and African soldiers, the programme – watched by 2,000,000 viewers and later shown across North America and South Asia –foregrounded a global understanding of the war. It also began the presenting career of the now-celebrated Anglo-Nigerian broadcaster David Olusoga. The enthusiasm with which the programme was received led the BBC to commission Das to write and present the Radio 4 series Soldiers of the Empire, which was selected as ‘Choice of the Week’. The Radio Producer and Programme Editor at the BBC remembers: “Das shared rare archival material about South Asian sepoys which revealed the truly global scope of the war and helped to correct the Eurocentric bias in our understanding of WW1 in the public sphere, including previous WW1 Programmes in the BBC.… Das’s research changed my view of the war and deepened my understanding. The programmes we made were a key contribution to the BBC’s coverage of WW1 and thanks to Das’s intervention the BBC is more aware of the importance of achieving a proper racial balance in the stories commissioned, especially on big occasions such as this 100th anniversary” [A]. Das was then asked to present Essays for Radio 3 on writers such as the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and Indian feminist Sarojini Naidu. In 2015, he took part in a British Council public debate on ‘Race and Colonial War’ in Dar Es Salaam, which was aired on BBC World Service. The originator of the British Council-BBC World Service partnership ‘The War that Changed the World’, reports: “[Santanu] shared rare archival material about South Asian sepoys which revealed the truly global scope of the war and helped to correct the Eurocentric bias in the public understanding of WW1. [… M]y work with Santanu […] deepened my understanding and enhanced considerably the appreciation of our audiences” [B].

We used our research to bring hitherto unknown and marginalised colonial voices to public attention. In all Das’s programmes and in interviews for the BBC’s Today programme, In Tune and The Jeremy Vine Show, and national radio programmes in Australia, Canada and India, Das used his archival findings to enable forgotten Indians to live again, reading from censored letters and playing original sound recordings. His finding of a pair of blood-stained glasses of Bengali combatant Jogen Sen in Leeds Pals Battalion, reported from daily to vernacular newspapers in India, resulted in BBC Yorkshire commissioning an Inside/Out documentary. The Yorkshire Post noted: “Private Sen was the only known non-white soldier to serve with the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment and was killed in action near the Somme in May 1916, aged 28. His story could easily have been forgotten had it not been for Dr Santanu Das” [C].

Our research changed the perspectives of audience members at more than 80 public lectures. Head of Research and Academic Partnerships at the Imperial War Museum noted: “Attending Santanu Das’s lectures transformed my understanding of the First World War. […] I have been able to highlight Das’s work to my colleagues, and this has been invaluable as the IWM – like so many other national museums – continues to confront the colonial aspects of its collections and to try to present a more rounded picture of the history we document” [E]. The influence of our research is ongoing. In a volume on teaching the First World War in schools, teacher and academic Dr Claire Buck claimed that “no one has done more to change the colour of memory than Santanu Das” [D].

Bringing together diverse sectors to combat Islamophobia and militarism

In the aftermath of the Brussels bombing and the associated wave of Islamophobia, Das brought together for the first time a wide range of sectors – members of the British Army and Navy, community leaders, curators from the National Army Museum, National Archives and Imperial War Museum, funders such as the HLF, academics, artists and activists – to combat Islamophobia with a discussion on commemoration. The conversation had two strands:

• how to instrumentalise the commemoration of colonial, particularly Muslim, soldiers who fought for the Allies to combat Islamophobia in wake of the terrorist attacks;

• interrogating Armistice commemorative practices and whether the sanitised, heroic and sacrificial narratives around soldiers, white or not-white, perpetuate a militarist culture.

The event was filmed and facilitated dialogue for the first time among sectors that do not usually come together for political, social or ideological reasons. The Regional Partnerships Community Manager at The National Archives noted: “It was conducted just after the terrorist attacks in Brussels, and it provided a space for people of different backgrounds to address questions of Islamophobia and bias, and gave us a chance not only to challenge views on racial stereotypes but also understand their points of views and thus have a more reflective discussion. It also provided a space to heal.” [I] For Muslims feeling alienated, the seminar sent a clear message to various sectors to use Muslim service in the two world wars to counter Islamophobic abuse. One result of the diverse conversations at this seminal meeting at KCL was the installation of a blue plaque for the South Asian Muslim Victoria Cross winner Mir Dast.

Diversifying centennial commemoration by introducing ethnic groups to non-white visual, cultural and musical First World War performances in London and regional hubs

Instead of telling heroic or martial tales of non-white participation, King’s researchers diversified First World War commemoration by placing recovered visual, literary and musical material at its centre through a series of creative collaborations with musicians, dancers and artists in diverse places and venues in India, Europe and the UK.

In 2014, Das organised an evening of war writings, songs and music from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East in the KCL chapel in collaboration with the British Academy. It was the first example of European and non-European literature and music of the First World War being showcased together. Censored letters by Indian soldiers and African labourers were read alongside the war poems of Rabindranath Tagore and Katherine Mansfield. It was also the first time that a substantive South Asian and West Indian audience attended a First World War commemorative programme which, even in London, conventionally drew uniformly white audiences. The event was booked out, and feedback included: “What it did was broaden my view of how many different ordinary people from around the world were deeply affected by Europe’s war. Absolutely stunning — has made me want to explore and find out more”. At public request, the concert was performed again: in 2015 in collaboration with the German Historical Institute, thus bringing an additional German presence to the audience, and finally in 2018 at the palace in Prague, where the mix of literary and musical pieces was particularly fêted at a time of Brexit nationalism. At the Royal Albert Hall in 2018, letters by Indian soldiers were projected on a screen, and Sarojini Naidu’s poem was read out by Muslim actress Nina Wahida, both items found by Das.

King’s researchers exhibited their findings in the Maughan Library (24 October – 17 December 2016). Attendees at these public events summed up broader audience responses: “Like many people, my grandfather was called up in WWI and I know very little about his life in Mesopotamia and elsewhere. I had very little knowledge of the ‘cultural’ aspects of WWI and therefore I have been very enlightened”; “I had no idea how international – the richness and range of feeling and suffering from so many people, peoples, countries… So diverse and yet so united in feeling” [F].

Introducing Indians, British Indians & the Sikh community to their First World War heritage

In 2018, Das acted as historical advisor and shared his archival material and expertise with the renowned choreographer Gary Clark to produce the dance-theatre By My Troth, based on an Indian First World War short story. It was produced by the South Asian theatre company Akademi and used British Asian actors and dancers, premiering first at the opening evening of the Jaipur Literary Festival in India and then at the Curve, Leicester. Das’s writings also directly inspired musical performances of Sacred Sound: Sikh Music and the First World War, conducted by the arts group Alchemy, at the Royal Armoury in Leeds in 2017, which was attended by a huge local Sikh audience in and around Leeds. The director of Alchemy wrote: “His research directly inspired two spoken word pieces and accompanying music performed by young British Asian musicians in front of large audience[s across venues].… Santanu transformed our views about the colour of war memory in Britain and opened the eyes of British Asian youths of today (as well as the older generation) to the role their ancestors played in the war and how they in turn can now make First World War Memory their own too. His publications and presentations had made a tangible difference to our understanding of the global and non-white dimensions of the conflict, as well as its literary and musical practices, which in turn will influence the present generation of British Asian youths to carry them forward and contribute towards the making of a more diverse society” [G].

King’s researchers enabled the Sikh community in the UK to claim the war as part of their very particular shared history with Britain. Over four years, Das collaborated with UK Punjab Heritage and gave lectures at local sites including the Brighton Pavilion and Dome (2017), Sri Guru Ravidass Sabha & Community Centre in Bedford (18 May 2019) and Wealdstone Library in Harrow (29 June 2019). Head of Projects at UK Punjab Heritage Association noted: “As a contributor and specialist advisor to our three-year project ‘Empire, Faith & War: The Sikhs & World War One’, Professor Das has helped diversify war memory so that the Sikh community in the UK can now claim it as part of their shared heritage with Britain.… During the exhibition run, Professor Das gave a very well-attended lecture at the Brunei Gallery on the Sikh contribution to the conflict. By drawing on rare archival imagery, literature and songs, he substantially enriched and changed our understanding of the war – particularly the important role played by the Sikhs. With the help of Professor Das, the Sikh community has experienced a profound shift in its sense of ownership of the story of the Sikhs’ contribution in the First World War. This will, we believe, help inter-community dialogue, strengthen Anglo-Sikh relations, give people a greater sense of identity, and undoubtedly help in combating racism in today’s and future generations” [H].

Das complemented his work on national media with personalised engagements at regional hubs, interacting with a diverse range of ethnic minorities and telling them not just about the South Asian war contribution but its selective appropriation by particular religious groups, the dangers of ‘heroic’ narratives and the traditions of anti-war dissent within India. His repeated caveats about the dangers of sanitising history impacted the museum and creative sectors too. The Regional Partnerships Community Manager at The National Archives noted: “by stressing [history’s] contested nature, he made it more possible for us to both celebrate the fact that Indians served in the war whilst also offering a chance to open up a space to critique the imperial relationship. As a direct result of working with Santanu we commissioned five short plays and published an online education bundle that used our records, both of which have been very warmly received” [I].

Over the last seven years, King’s researchers have engaged international artists, writers, activists and diverse publics through literary festivals, radio programmes, newspaper articles and symposiums. We used post-war Germany as a case study, allowing us to see the refugee crisis, the development of an idea of Europe and left-wing melancholia in close up. We then took these findings about the post-war period to illuminate and change the situation in post-war Europe and in particular the UK. During our project, the British voted to leave the EU and the debates about being European became more frequent and more urgent. There was a widescale rise of nationalist feeling and an associated wave of hostility to the refugees who were moving in great numbers across Europe. Using our research, we intervened to change perceptions both of the EU and of the refugee crisis. At a time when the case for staying in the EU tended to be made in economic or political terms, we made a positive case for being European, arguing for a shared cultural identity. We also used the idea of affect – specifically melancholy – to introduce a more complex and nuanced historical account of European post-war identities in the context of the largely economic and/or politically nationalist debates that developed during the Brexit period.

Shaping debate about European collaboration/movement to include awareness of the past

King’s research about post-war Germany coincided with a period of urgent debate about Britain’s role in Europe and the mass movement of refugees across Europe. We intervened in these debates, changing the perspectives of media professionals by using our new research to remind them that the movement of refugees had its roots in the period of reconstruction after the War. By doing so, we reminded them of why the EU existed in the first place and of what is at stake in leaving it (the breakdown of the peace process begun in 1945). We also reminded people that European nations including Britain have weathered a previous mass movement of populations without losing a sense of national identity or home. We were able to make debates on this subject more nuanced. Reminding people that the EU began partly as a cultural idea (with a notion of a shared culture), we intervened in debates to make a positive case for being European.

We changed the practice of media professionals in the UK and worldwide (specifically in countries with strong links to the EU or the UK, such as India and Australia) to include these perspectives in their debates. These producers made programmes with considerable international reach. Feigel spoke about the reconstruction of Germany and the inception of Europe on Australia’s influential Late Night Live (267,833 listeners) and on Radio 3’s Private Passions (250,000 listeners; Feigel chose and discussed pieces of music related to the cultural reconstruction of Germany) . The producer of Private Passions said: “Feigel’s research brought a new perspective to Radio 3, enabling us to focus on the role of culture in postwar reconstruction and on the roles of cultural figures in Britain and Germany in promoting European integration. This intervention came at a crucial time, following the Brexit vote”. Feigel spoke about the importance of looking back to 1945 as a moment of mass movement and when Britain was committed to being European in order to promote peace on a Radio 3 New Thinking ‘Free Thinking’ podcast about post-war Germany. The producer said: “we were grateful to Lara Feigel for bringing her research on the reconstruction of Germany into the frame of the debate about Germany now and Europe now. Feigel reminded us that the cooperation between nations in Germany was crucial in beginning the process of collaboration that led to the inception of the EU. Without her research, we wouldn’t have covered this” [A].

We also used our research to change the perspectives of individual audience members at the 27 talks Feigel gave at literary festivals. These included Cheltenham Literature Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival and Bristol Festival of Ideas. The event chair at Bristol (June 2017, with 150 attendees: writers, general readers, national and international media) reported : “Lara’s new research showed that the occupation of Germany was where all the international cooperation today began. The event changed the tone of debate around this, enabling people to be more questioning and giving us a larger context for the discussion” [B].

Using affect to build bridges between artists across Europe

In the wake of the 2016 Brexit vote, and in the midst of the migrant crisis, King’s researchers used our new research on post-war melancholia to curate an exhibition at Somerset House entitled Melancholia: A Sebald Variation (Sept–Dec 2017) . This used the bombed cities and the swarming refugees of 1945 as a starting point in making a case for melancholia as a common affect uniting European artists and as a force for change. The exhibition was a collaboration with the CCCB in Barcelona (who had just mounted a Sebald exhibition). From the Barcelona exhibition, we took works by Susan Hiller, Jeremy Wood and the Dutch artist Guido Van der Werve. Alongside these, we assembled works including: German artist Albrecht Dürer’s 1514 Melencolia, a major loan from the British Museum that enabled us to exhibit the foundational image of melancholia as a potential force of revelation and change; and British artist Tacita Dean’s Bless Our Europe, specially commissioned for the exhibition.

Changing artists’ and galleries’ practice: We used the exhibition to build bridges between artists across Europe, establishing that their work has common roots in the post-war period and its melancholic affect. The exhibition fuelled the artists and collaborative gallery with hopeful energy, enabling them to turn the melancholic past into a source of energy in the present. CCCB commented: “the King’s exhibition revealed the melancholic theme of the art, and showed this to respond to war’s aftermath. It revealed melancholia itself to have regenerative powers that we can call on now. This is a theme we continue to explore” [C]. For the artists, the exhibition fostered a new sense of shared European themes and of the relationship between contemporary art and the post-war past. A Turner Prize shortlisted British artist who exhibited wrote: “the excellent melancholia exhibition allowed me to create a new context for my work and transform public understanding of contemporary painting, opening it to the largest historical and cultural questions in ways that have enriched my practice since.” An award winning Dutch artist wrote: “melancholia is an important theme in my work and it meant a lot to see that I have this theme in common with other European artists, and that this takes us back to our common past. It has fuelled a new phase of my work and has made me see the political potential of my work, in using the past to provide resistance in the present.” [C].

Changing audience perspectives: We enabled the viewers of the exhibition to use melancholia as a source of political action, revealing melancholia as a potentially galvanising force. The exhibition was attended by 6,201 members of the public (artists, curators, writers, students, general visitors, national and international art and general media) and succeeded in making a case for melancholia as a connective force. Attendees commented: “It made me re-think melancholia as not merely reactionary or defeated acceptance; but rather as the beginning of a possibility of overcoming suffering”; “[I] work in health. It provided an example of communication and how to explore loss” [C].

Changing media perspectives: We used our research to bring new perspectives to print media, making a case for melancholia as a force for change. Feigel published an article in the Financial Times (readership 1,000,000; circulation 175,512) arguing for melancholia as “the only possible honest and enriching response to the human and specifically the European condition” [C]. Stonard published an article about van der Werve in The Guardian (readership: 1,027,000; circulation: 132,831) , introducing him to UK readers for the first time, arguing that “the theme of exile, journeys and historical reminiscence bring Nummer Veertien into the orbit of the writings of W. G. Sebald” [C]. The Guardian Review editor wrote: “we were delighted to use King’s research to introduce this major artist to the UK and to show how important melancholia is as a force for change.” The review in Frieze (readership: 319,230 (print)) praised “the exhibition’s examination of itinerancy and loneliness, which … feels especially resonant in light of the ongoing migrant crisis” [C].

Culture before politics: fostering a new sense of European citizenship

Following the exhibition, we wanted to ask how to turn left-wing melancholia into political activism and to address the refugee crisis explicitly and connect it to the past. We felt that, as the Brexit process went on, the Remain cause had failed to articulate a positive vision of European identity. King’s research has shown that culture was fundamental to the inception of the EU, so we wanted to use this to make a case for the continued importance of culture in conceptualising European identity. The Idea of Europe (timed to take place a week after the 31 October 2019 deadline to leave the EU) brought 12 influential activists and cultural leaders together to use our research to articulate a new (cultural) vision of being European. These included an activist and recent MEP candidate who co-founded DiEM25, the movement for democracy in Europe (70,000 members), bestselling authors and broadcasters from around the world.

Influencing activists: The co-founder of DiEM25 stated that the symposium changed his future approach: “the symposium and workshop gave me a new context for thinking and a new public to engage with. It galvanised and nuanced my thinking about how an activist European identity can affect current political realities and how literature can play a part in activism. Going forward, I intend to make more of culture in shaping policy within the DiEM25 movement and intend to find ways to make an understanding of postwar ruin and migration accessible to contemporary audiences, reminding European governments that the migration crises have roots in the 1940s and that the countries they rule are recent creations.” [D]. The day before the symposium we ran a workshop with this activist, aimed at training activists to articulate new narratives around migration and Brexit. One participant, an Afghani human rights attorney who does pro bono work for refugees and had been feeling frustrated by the “false and useless narratives” associated with migration and Brexit, wrote that the workshop had strengthened her perception of how writers and literature can influence society and encouraged her to alter her professional practice: “this is a great way to engage, learn, and teach and I will use what I have learnt to help empower the refugees I work with by teaching them more about the continuity with the postwar refugee crisis.”

Influencing audience members: The majority of feedback forms received suggested that the perspectives of our international 250-person audience had been changed. One person reported it had “encouraged me to look beyond Britain and Europe” when examining ideas of Europe and migration, raising the idea of enacting a more “poetic approach to migration”. A Finnish participant wrote that the collaborative discussions – in illuminating the “interplay” between “politics, culture and literature” – had lead them to the conclusion that “We need new narratives” grounded in historical contexts, and that, with respect to their personal and professional practice, “It definitely challenged me to think where I should head after graduating. I really do feel empowered.”

Changing the perspectives of media professionals: The symposium was a collaboration with Granta magazine (readership: 50,000), who themed their November 2019 issue on Europe to coincide with the conference and co-commissioned four articles from our speakers. Granta’s deputy editor reported that their work has been changed by the collaboration: “The work Feigel and the Beyond Enemy Lines team are doing feels hugely important, and it was exciting for us to be introduced to a new selection of vibrant, young European writers who are now very much on our radar and who we will commission to write for Granta magazine.” [D] Feigel was asked to write an article in The Guardian asking what we can learn from post-war European literature and arguing that Remainers need to be better Europeans by engaging actively with it. This launched a new column commissioned by The Guardian, inspired by the symposium ( Notes From, launched 23 November 2019, reporting on the contemporary literary scene in Europe) [E]. The Director of the European Literature Network wrote that the research underpinning the symposium convinced her that: “Culture should be at the heart of the Brexit discussion – this is ever clearer to me.” She felt “better informed, better equipped to talk to others about European culture and literature” [D]. The project created lasting changes to media attitudes to Europe.