We’re very proud to be launching Re:Sound, with the help of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, to allow young people in Greater Manchester to connect with heritage through fun audio creativity.  

Manchester City of Literature and Unlocking Our Sound Heritage have brought together 3 Manchester based sound artists with 3 Manchester community groups. Each sound artist and community group pairing will be hosted by a Greater Manchester archive, where they will work together to bring audio heritage and local history to life through dynamic soundscaping, collaging and music.  

This has been made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarding Re:Sound a grant, raised by National Lottery players. 

For this year’s Re:Sound the artist and community group pairings are: 

Yussuf Maleem (music producer, poet and creative educator) will work with Afrocats on Manchester Central Library’s GM Collection of 90/00s recordings to create around the theme of African Dance. 

Jade Parker (electronic producer and vocalist) will work with KYSO Talent Group on Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’s 250 recordings about working life and social history in the Bolton and Manchester archives to create around the changing lives of women. 

Jaydev Mistry (guitarist, percussionist and music technologist) will work with Pendleton Sixth Form College to go through the 100 cassettes at The Working Class Movement Library linked to anti-fascism and the Communist party. 

The Re:Sound project will see the sound artists creating pieces inspired by their archive. This performance is free and open to the public at 6.30pm Wednesday 26th October in the Performance Space of Manchester Central Library (tickets are available here). Some of the members of the Community Groups will attend to see what their artists have made and from there, our Community Groups and artists will spend time together in their archive. This time will then lead to the Community Groups designing and producing their own creative response to the archive footage and their artist’s work.  

The original work the groups create will be showcased in person during the Festival of Libraries in June 2023. The project soundscapes will have longevity by becoming archives themselves on the Manchester City of Literature and archive websites, on different streaming platforms and on social media. 

Some may wonder why we’ve created this project with Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. Well, gaining knowledge and awareness of local cultural history allows connection and belonging to your local area and the creative showcases mean awareness of these archives will open and be accessible to other local young people and these groups’ peers. 

We hope that sharing the discoveries within these archives through creative community use will help broaden how communities engage with these archives. Exploring different ways of sharing heritage is essential to the future of local history. 

And it isn’t just us that thinks so:

Councillor Luthfur Rahman, Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, highlights that this is

“a fantastic project that brings together young people with some of Manchester’s most talented sound artists in a unique collaboration that will see them dig and delve into the city’s cultural archives to experience the material in them in new ways. 
Manchester’s past is as much a part of what the city is today as what it will be in the future. Sharing this history with our young people is vital therefore if we want them to understand the city’s roots and also to help shape its future direction.  That’s where Re:Sound comes in and I can’t wait to see what they come up with!” 

Councillor Rahman’s sentiment above is echoed by Kemoy Walker from the KYSO Talent Group who believes

“that this project will be brilliant for our young people to become involved in because as they learn from the archives, they will see their role in shaping a future which we will be able to speak about proudly when our collective work becomes history.” 

While you might think we’re biased, we genuinely couldn’t agree more.