03/02/2012

Culture Company 2013 is holding an information session on its ‘Portrait of a City’ project in Shantallow Library at 11.00 am tomorrow Saturday, February 4.

One of the most ambitious strands of the 2013 City of Culture programme, ‘Portrait of a City’ seeks to give every community the opportunity to tell its own story by collecting together old photographs, personal artefacts and other archive material, and record the stories behind these images of community life over the decades.

Each community will build up a ‘digital memory bank’ that will leave an important legacy for future generations. Throughout 2013 the images and stories from the digital memory bank will be brought to life through innovative art projects in local community centres, libraries and schools that allow every generation to creatively explore the history of their place. These digital stories will be shared online with the diaspora and a series of digital exhibitions will be created by each community and toured around the different neighbourhoods in the city.
Culture Company will work with local partner organisations in each community to provide a training programme of short courses in digital archiving; covering areas such as digital video editing, film handling, transfer and preservation, audio recording, digital stills photography and image capture, scanning and storage. The courses will appeal to anyone interested in archiving family history, including individuals who may have large collections of photographs, personal artwork, Super 8 film or video.
Culture Company is now seeking individuals and volunteers from the Shantallow community who are interested in participating in ‘Portrait of a City.’ Shantallow Library Services will be a key partner in the project and the Library will be the venue for a four-week training course in digital archiving beginning on Thursday February 9th.
Details of the training course, which will be free to any member of the public (aged 16 and above) will be announced at the information session on Saturday, February 4. All are welcome.
Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of Culture Company, said:
“City of Culture 2013 offers unique opportunities to explore the history and shared heritage of Derry-Londonderry and tell a new story to the world. Culture Company plans to use digital technology to empower every community in the city to take an active role in rediscovering its history and telling its own story. This initiative will be a unique example of an entire city taking ownership of the telling of its history in a digital age as the citizens of Derry unearth their history and discover new stories from their community that have never been heard before.”

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