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The Memory Workshop and Memory Bike

The Memory Workshop and Memory Bike support the recording, archiving and digitisation of local voices and oral histories in and around the Olympic Park in East London.

The Memory Workshop

The Memory Workshop is a collecting and digitisation project within our听UCL听Urban Room听at 皇家华人 East.听Using the idea of lab-based learning, the workshop records oral histories within London and facilitates digitization of community and other collections on campus in our mini-studio. Student and partner users of the workshop can digitise vinyl records, VHS and cassette tapes as well as edit their own digital materials. This work is part of Urban Room鈥檚 commitment to supporting impactful student research and developing collaborations with artists, residents and organisations around the Olympic Park where UCL East is located.

In 2023-2024 the Urban Room theme memory, focusing on making histories more accessible to the public as well as contributing to a further understanding the role that of memorialisation plays in society today. Select materials that are digitised and recorded in the Memory Workshop will become part of our Urban Room digital collection managed by UCL Special Collections.

The Memory Bike

The Memory Bike is a bicycle-mounted recording and listening station and digital acoustic archive which supports the documentation and recording of local voices and everyday soundscapes. Housed听in the听UCL听Urban Room,听the bike is a digitzation facility and collaborative archive听and听an extension of the Memory Workshop.

The Memory Bike has been designed by students and researchers working in听The Bartlett, UCL鈥檚 Faculty of the Built Environment and听The School for the Creative and Cultural Industries, it is supported by UCL Special Collections.

Find out more in the Memory Workshop and Bike handbook.

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Equipment

The Memory Bike is equipped with a comprehensive set of oral history recording tools, conveniently packed into our ready-to-go backpacks.听This includes Zoom recorders, SD cards, microphones, headphones, as well as a mobile table and stools to facilitate interviews and oral histories.

Call for proposals:听UCL Memory Bike

Applications are now closed. to be notified when the听next round of applications open.

We are now inviting applications from UCL staff and students, and external partners and organisations, who wish to use the Memory Bike for community-based oral history, audio recording and digital archiving projects. We particulalry welcome projects which connect with the themes of听memory, arts, heritage, or urbanism.

Applications can come from anywhere, but the bike can only be used within the four Olympic boroughs in East London (Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest). Successful applicants will听also have access to a budget of up to 拢400 to support their projects.

Supported projects

Creekmouth

The Memory Workshop supported this oral history and animation project documenting the loss of Creekmouth Village in the 1953 flood.听

Voices of East Bank

The Memory Bike has been at the heart of a project to gather an online archive of stories about east London鈥檚 heritage, communities, and languages.

Equipment from the Memory Bike was used to capture oral histories from听women participants in Melanie Manchot's artwork Flotilla.