Filling the GAP – Granton Archive Project 2023
'Filling the GAP’ is a heritage project which aims to identify and develop the history group's archive to become a well-used, dynamic, cultural and heritage resource that will be accessible to the community, charities, organisations, policy makers, academics and artists. Through activities, we encourage local engagement with granton:hub and all its resources using co-comissioning creative progamming.
Hello, I’m Julie Gibb the newly appointed development worker here at granton:hub. I’ve joined the group to help realise the ambition of ‘Filling the GAP’, a heritage project that will use the granton:hub archives as inspiration for an art project and to develop the archive to reflect life in North Edinburgh today.
A major part of the job is to create a list of what is in the archive to record what we already have. In an initial survey of the material, I’ve found that it contains the stories of people in the North Edinburgh Community who wanted to make a difference. From creating support groups to forming campaigns against bad housing, the closure of local schools and hospitals, it reveals how the residents fought to make the area a better place to live. There are hundreds of photographs that show the community coming together to celebrate gala days and festivals, and the smaller events for young and old hosted at the community centres dotted around the area.
There is a lot of potential in the material we have and plenty of stories out there waiting to be uncovered. What is important is for the local community to be involved in deciding how we tell these stories and how the archive expands to reflect life in 21st Century Granton.
There is already a well-established group of volunteers who have produced tours, display boards and published books on the history of the Granton area. We would welcome new members to the group as there are lots of opportunities to get involved from cataloguing the collection and working on research projects to creating new exhibition display boards. Volunteers can commit as much time as they are able.
If you are interested in getting involved please contact me at: history@grantonhub.org