London Creative Arts Initiative of the Year, London Higher Awards, Finalist for 'In Living Memory'

The 'In Living Memory: A People's History of Post-War Lewisham' project was a finalist in the London Creative Arts Initiative of the Year category in the London Higher Awards, 2024.

What happens when cultural production and social history combine? What happens when communities are empowered to tell their own stories, in ways that matter to them? These were the guiding questions behind In Living Memory, a Mayor of London/Heritage Lottery-funded project as part of Lewisham London Borough of Culture 2022/23. This project supported six community-led initiatives focussed on untold local histories. Across festivals, exhibitions, film screenings and public artworks, it explored lost LGBTQ+ histories, Windrush generation narratives, stories of floods, protests and childbirth. The programme’s events and digital outputs reached hundreds of thousands of people. In Living Memory has influenced school curriculums and created a series of permanent public artworks across Lewisham. It has been celebrated by the Greater London Authority an exemplar of community-led cultural programming. Its legacy will ensure that local history is present in next generations’ education and that Lewisham’s rejuvenated heritage environment foregrounds previously untold stories.