The aim is to produce new knowledge and understandings about Manchester’s past, present and future treescapes through a combination of archival research, creative practice, and scientific inquiry. This sub-WP will engage students from three secondary schools in co-researching the cultural and ecological histories of trees in the city, drawing on the city’s rich cultural and historical archive, and young people’s lived experiences to identify new, transgenerational ways of encountering and understanding the city.
Methods:
Youth co-researchers will collaborate with academic researchers on archival research on representations of Manchester’s treescapes in three of the city’s libraries and archives (North West Film Archive, the Portico Library, and Special Collections at Manchester Metropolitan University), alongside and in dialogue with scientific explorations of the contemporary and historical ecological contributions of local treescapes. Via a series of in-the-field creative writing workshops led by Manchester-based creative practitioners (Elmi Ali and Maya Chowdhury) whose work reflects on environment, identity and the intergenerational experience of place, youth co-researchers will produce their own place writing, expressing their diverse experiences of and imaginative responses to local treescapes.