Open Past

Organisations 

Open Past

Location 

Most of the work will be undertaken remotely with the possibilty of accessing hot desks at the Eskmills business estate in Musselburgh.

Dates 

Flexible (All internships comprise of a maximum of three months FTE to be taken within this timescale.)

Project Description

The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked what she considered to be the first sign of humanity. While the questioner expected an answer like cave paintings, religious icons, etc. Mead explained that the first sign was a thousands of years old fractured and healed femur, the long bone in the leg. In the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has carried the person to safety and has tended to them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life, that is when we developed humanity.

It is the fact we have the sick, the hurt, the disabled and the old that makes us human. This participatory art and heritage project will remind people that we gain our humanity by caring for one another in solidary, not by selfishly looking out for ourselves.

This project will be producing art and education resources for anyone to use around historical examples of people caring for one another.

Outputs

This project is multi-faceted and there are several specific outcomes that they can work on. Too many to complete in three months and so we do not expect them to work on all of these results. They will be able to choose which aspect they would like to work on in this project. Some may be more interested in the art aspect, or the teaching or the heritage research and we are happy to be flexible and let them decide what facet of this project they would like to work on. Their choices would be:

• Help create teacher packets with learning resources and sheets so that teachers can incorporate them into their day to day teaching.
• Conduct in-depth research into a range of historical events, archaeological findings, etc. to produce extensive background research into the heritage highlighted in the art aspect of the project.
• Create learning and teaching activities based around the resources created in the project.
• Contribute to the creation of some of the art materials.
• Help create digital learning and teaching activities based around the resources i.e. COVID remote teaching.
• Research and identify the best routes to get the materials into the hands of teachers and educators.

Benefits to the Host

There are several aims to the project:

• Teach people about their heritage and the past using visual art as a medium to do so
• Create learning packets of the materials for educators to use in their teaching i.e. pre-made lesson plans so teachers can easily use them
• Distribute those learning materials to teachers
• Promote solidarity and caring

The goal of our organisation is to help advance people's knowledge and skills regardless of personal circumstances, with a focus on history, heritage and archaeology. Whichever aspects of this project the intern contributes to it will help us reach that aim.

If they contribute to creating the learning materials they will be helping people learn about the past. If they contribute to the research they will be helping people learn details about the past. If they contribute to the art aspect then they will be helping people to engage and learn about the past through a visual medium.

This project is about using art to engage people with, and build, a deeper understandings about the human past and condition. It aligns perfectly with the goal of our organisation.

Benefits to the Researcher

This will be dependent on what aspect of the project the intern would like to work on but some of the benefits and skills gain in all aspects would be:

• A concrete outcome e.g. learning resource, piece of research; that will be publicly available that would make an excellent example in a CV/portfolio;
• The opportunity to network with leading experts and artists around Europe;
• Work experience e.g. time management, meeting deadlines, producing materials, etc;
• General learning about art, history, heritage and archaeology from around Europe;
• Making a difference in the lives of others.

Areas that will be dependent on what aspects of the project they will work on:

• The creation of an art piece for their portfolio;
• The opportunity to learn how to develop and create learning resources;
• The opportunity to research a diverse range of topics;
• Experience engaging with educators and learning best practice in creating learning resources;
• Experience engaging with a diverse range of audiences;
• Creation of public facing research for the general public;
• How to communicate with diverse audiences and how to use social media;
• Experience creating and working with digital learning resources;
• Website management training and experience;
• Experience in copyright and open licensing;
• Experience with translating and working in different languages;

These are just some of the experiences and opportunities this placement could give them. Because they will be able to select the areas they would like to work in they can help mould their outcomes and what their want to learn/gain out of the internship. We look forward to working these out with the intern and it may be that they suggest activities we had not considered and as such there are other benefits they could gain that we have not thought of.

Key Relationships

There will be several key groups that the intern will work with during this project. Some will depend on the tasks they would like to undertake:

• A dozen artists who are creating the materials;
• Educators – this will range from school teachers to teachers in other settings e.g. afterschool programmes, outdoor learning, etc;
• Homeschooling/home educators groups and individuals;
• Experts in the heritage field e.g. historians, archivists, archaeologists, etc;
• There may be some interaction with the general public through the website and digital aspects of the project as anyone will be able to access the resources created.

Person Specification

Skills, experience and personal qualities requires for this placement:

First published: 3 August 2018