In 2022 Mass Observation will be celebrating 85 years of the Mass Observation movement. More details will be published here as they become available.
Since March 2020, Mass Observation (MO) has collected diaries and other writing from thousands of people across Britain on everyday life during the Covid-19 pandemic. This online seminar series will bring together archivists and researchers to discuss how best to use MO’s Covid-19 collections and the methodological challenges they present. The archivists will provide an introduction to the archive, the collections, and plans for digitisation and other projects/events. There will be opportunities for researchers to present papers (probably two speakers per seminar, plus time for discussion). One outcome of the series might be a website of seminar videos. Another outcome might be a journal special issue on using MO’s Covid-19 collections and related topics, such as:
When? Every month, starting in late spring/early summer 2021.
Where? Online
Who?
The organisers are Nick Clarke (University of Southampton) and Clive Barnett (University of Exeter), in collaboration with Kirsty Pattrick and Jessica Scantlebury (Mass Observation) and the British Academy (Special Research Grant: Covid-19 – ‘Learning to Live with Risk and Responsibility: Understanding Popular Responses to Covid-19’ – see https://covidresponsibility.org). We invite participation from established and early career researchers, including PhD students.
How?
To express an interest in participating, as a speaker or audience member, please e-mail Nick Clarke (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by 05/03/21.* To express an interest in presenting a paper at some point in the series, please include your name, institution, and ideas for a working title and brief abstract. We aim to send a schedule and joining instructions to participants in early spring.
*By e-mailing, you agree to be contacted about the seminar series. Your e-mail address may be visible to other participants when this happens, but will otherwise be held by the organisers in accordance with the University of Southampton’s data protection policy (available at https://www.southampton.ac.uk/legalservices/what-we-do/data-protection-and-foi.page).
This exhibition at Bolton Museum presents new work by Richard Slee, one of Britain’s most important contemporary ceramic artists. The newly commissioned pieces have been inspired by Mass Observation’s Mantlepiece Reports of 1937. The reports, with their fascinating lists of objects, reveal much about the tastes, preferences and preoccupations of people living in 1930s Britain. Slee’s work also explores questions of personal and national identity, history and taste, through his surreal transformations of ordinary domestic objects.
Slee has also selected 18 photographs by Humphrey Spender to hang alongside his mantelpiece ceramics. Spender was the lead photographer on Mass Observation’s study of Bolton and Blackpool in the late 1930s, and the 900 images he took for the project are held in the collections of Bolton Museum. The photographs of industrial Bolton and its textile workers at play in Blackpool are hugely evocative of the 1930s, and therefore lend a sense of period context to Slee’s new ceramics. Material from the Mass Observation Archive is displayed as part of the exhibition.
More more information visit the Bolton Museum website.
This exhibition at Hove Museum presents by Richard Slee, one of Britain’s most important contemporary ceramic artists. The newly commissioned pieces have been inspired by Mass Observation’s Mantlepiece Reports of 1937. The reports, with their fascinating lists of objects, reveal much about the tastes, preferences and preoccupations of people living in 1930s Britain. Slee’s work also explores questions of personal and national identity, history and taste, through his surreal transformations of ordinary domestic objects.
More more information visit the Hove Museum website.
Mass Observation is hosting two children's workshops at Hove museum on 28th & 29th October. Fun, hands on children's activities for 5-8yr olds inspired by the Mantelpiece exhibition, as well as a creative writing workshop for adults on 6th November.
For more information and booking visit the Hove Museum website
29 July 2020, 5:00PM - 6:15PM
How might future historians seek to write the history of 2020, when will 2020 become a subject for historical analysis, and how are—and how should—today's historians and record keepers prepare the ground for this task?
The 2020 Historical Research lecture, sponsored by Oxford University Press, looks at current events from the perspective of three leading historians.
Professor Claire Langhamer (Professor of Modern British History and Trustee of the Mass Observation Archive, Sussex University)
Professor Kevin Siena (Trent University, Ontario, and a historian of early modern disease and contagion)
Professor Richard Vinen (Professor of History, King’s College London, and a specialist in contemporary history)
With Professor Jo Fox (Director, Institute of Historical Research, chair)
The panel will approach ‘2020’ from the perspectives of the contemporary historian, the specialist in historical and contemporary record-keeping; and the historian of earlier, comparable episodes for which histories have now been written.
This free online
festival is presented by the University’s Centre for Worktown Studies. It comprises of a range of talks, workshops, displays of art, a dramatic production and music inspired by the theme of Worktown. Presenters include University staff and students and representatives of Bolton U3A and Live from Worktown.
A link to the programme can be found at: FESTIVAL OF-WORKTOWN Bolton School of the Arts.
To celebrate the launch of Mass Observation Project, Adam Matthew Digital is hosting an online launch event on 14th July 2020 at 16:00. The launch will include a tour of the brand-new site along with guest scholars on the history of Mass Observation,
Speakers:
Dorothy Sheridan MBE, FRSA Director of the Mass Observation Archive (1990-2010), Trustee of the Mass Observation Archive (2010-2020) and Honorary Professor of the University of Sussex
Prof. Claire Langhamer, Professor of Modern British History, University of Sussex
Dr. Jill Kirby, Lecturer in History, University of Sussex
Alex Butler, Outreach and Engagement Manager, Adam Matthew Digital
Mass Observation Project is an essential collection for historians, cultural scholars, sociologists and anyone looking at British public opinion from the 1980s to present day.
On the 24th March, the Mass Observation Archive will be joining Rachel Hurdley on Radio 4 to help her explore the Hidden History of the Mantelpiece. In the programme, Rachel will be taking a look at the mantelpiece and how its development reflects changes in society. For more information and to listen visit BBC Sounds.