Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
The future use of former prison sites to be discussed at Leeds Beckett funded event
The event, which alongside a range of academic speakers will include a talk from Stewart McLaughlin from Wandsworth Prison Museum, will take place at Canterbury Christ Church University on Friday 20 March from 10am-4pm at the North Holmes Road Campus.
The Centre for Culture and Arts is one of the funding partners of the event alongside the School of Law, Criminal Justice and Computing at Canterbury Christ Church University, the University of Hull and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project, the Digital Panopticon. Leeds Beckett became involved due to Dr Shore’s AHRC funded research network, ‘Our Criminal Past: Caring for the Future’.
Dr Heather Shore, a Reader in History at Leeds Beckett, will be representing the Centre for Culture and the Arts at the event. She commented: “The prison has recently been purchased by Canterbury Christ Church University, which generates a unique opportunity to represent an example of our past in critical and innovative ways.
“I established the network alongside Dr Helen Johnston, a colleague from the University of Hull. We will attend the event with other members of the Our Criminal Past network to express our views and ideas, based on our research, about how prisons could be used in the future, and we’d encourage anyone interested who may have some ideas to attend too. The support of the Centre for Culture and the Arts has been invaluable in sustaining our discussions around crime and penal heritage.”
The event will involve a series of discussion panels exploring areas such as the possibilities of digital museums, dark tourism and community engagement in prison history. It is hoped that the event will spark lively discussion and generate ideas that will be of use to both academics and those working in the heritage centre.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided at the event. For further information about the research and the event contact Dr Heather Shore at h.shore@leedsbeckett.ac.uk. To register for the event, contact Dr Maryse Tennant at maryse.tennant@canterbury.ac.uk.