Staying Home and Influencing London’s Recovery - The GLA’s London Community Story Project and plans for a future Insights Hub for London 

Thursday 17th March, 2022

Melissa Bennett

Why London Community Story

In 2020, soon after London went into its first lockdown, communities, arts and cultural, and heritage organisations began projects to start to gather people’s experiences of the pandemic. Collections of films, poems, photographs, diaries, and much more were created, focusing on lived experience and generating a wealth of collections that could be tapped into by those responding to the crisis. While these collecting projects were occurring, policy and decision makers were rapidly trying to research the impact of COVID-19 on London’s diverse communities in order to deliver support. What was not on their radar was the available creative material that they could have been utilising. Where they were aware of these insights, they were unsure about how to utilise them.

The sheer scale of community collecting projects that were taking place was evidenced by GLA-commissioned research that discovered 160 projects and activities that collected and recorded Londoners’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic through creative and non-traditional material. The research report and list of collections highlight the diversity of organisations that were gathering insights from their communities at this time as well as the gaps in collecting that means some communities are un or under-represented. 

Alongside this research, we co-produced ‘Connecting Community Insights to Policy’ a guide for community organisations and policy makers with a number of case studies that highlighted the utility of creative materials for decision makers. The guide was the product of a ‘sprint’ with seven partner individuals and organisations from academia, museums, and creative backgrounds. During our weeks together we discussed knowledge as a concept and the need for all knowledge to count in policymaking. In addition, we talked about what might need to change to ensure that the knowledge of London’s diverse communities became an essential part of decision-making processes. 

Considering findings from the sprint, research, and 23 community roundtables with the Deputy Mayor about issues communities were facing, it was clear that communities needed support to ensure that their stories reached policy makers. As a result, we developed the London Community Story grant which had the following three aims:

• To support organisations to analyse their collections, then present and share them with decision makers, archiving them for future use.

• To demonstrate the richness & utility of creative responses to policy questions or crises for funders, civil society, boroughs, and policy makers.

• To connect the Recovery Missions with programme grantees and their insights

London Community Story Grants and Training

London Community Story launched in January 2021 as part of the Mayor of London’s Community Led Recovery programme. The programme consisted of two grant programmes to support communities to share insights that relate to the 9 missions set out to steer London’s recovery. London Community Story supported organisations that had collected Londoners’ stories during the early months of the pandemic, with funding for time to analyse and share of the information they had gathered. 

Twenty organisations were funded with small grants of £1500. Alongside this funding, they were also provided with training in data analysis and data storytelling from Superhighways, opportunities to take part in reflective learning sessions with other organisations working on similar projects, and opportunities to connect with experts in data analysis and presentation such as Amanda Taylor, co-founder of Tekja. 

Project Outputs: What have the LCS organisations produced? 

The projects explored a number of areas from young Londoners’ experiences of the pandemic to older Londoners’ isolation and reconnection through digital methods. We heard from those who had worked throughout the pandemic in London’s hospitals, schools and foodbanks as well as those who had stayed at home to save lives and how it had impacted upon their income as well as their mental and physical health. The final outputs of each of the twenty organisations came in a number of formats including zines, short films, infographics, sound archives, photographs, poems, and short prose. We’ll be sharing them all soon on the Mayor of London’s Google Arts and Culture pages and in a project zine.

You can view them in five online exhibitions on the Mayor of London’s Google Arts and Culture platform:

• Londoners’ Stories of Community Life During COVID-19

• Younger and Older Londoners’ Stories of COVID-19

• Londoners' Stories of Finding Connection During COVID-19

• Londoners’ Stories of Health, Food and Wellbeing During COVID-19

• Londoners' Stories of School, Work and Life During COVID-19

Alongside these more public outputs, organisations were able to present their work to policy makers from the relevant fields though lunch and learn sessions with GLA staff, had direct contact with policy teams and policy forums e.g. the Boroughs Food Group and opportunities to connect to key consultations on new policy areas through joining sessions on the Mayor’s new wellbeing measure.

To give a taster of some of the outputs and their diversity of topics and mediums, I’ve chosen four to zoom in on.

Picture This! (photography and film)

Picture This! was a participatory photography and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) online project by Fotosynthesis and Learning Unlimited. Participants creatively improved their language skills through the universal language and accessibility of digital photography. The work produced throughout the project tells us about the experiences of those who were learning English as the pandemic began, some of their challenges in accessing information and how the project helped them to build a new community and grow in confidence. You can watch their short film to find out more. 

Moments of Grace (sound and oral history)

'Moments of Grace' is an interactive artwork featuring a sound archive of nurses’ oral histories. Upon clicking on the website you hear about the COVID-19 experiences of nurses at the specific time of day you have entered. The project was led by oral history community On the Record who aimed to capture the lived experiences of the nurses and midwives that worked tirelessly to care for people during the pandemic. You can view the project trailer to find out more.

Lockdown Love Stories (written stories)

Lockdown Love Stories provided a space on the internet dedicated to people's relationship stories during lockdown. Strangers were able to (often anonymously) connect over shared experiences of love, lust and loneliness. The site, created by artist Philippa Found, helped to tackle feelings of isolation and shame. Over 1250 stories were submitted and you can browse them all on the website. Philippa used the method of chalking in parks to spread the word of the project and encourage submissions. She made the most of spaces that people could visit during the lockdown to make them aware of the online community she had created.

Joy of Sound (infographics)

Joy of Sound (JOS) runs participatory music and combined arts projects for marginalised communities. This includes older people, individuals with profound and multiple learning disability (PMLD), learning disabled (LD) and children with special educational needs (SEN). They produced the infographic below to depict the ongoing real-life challenges and barriers to gaining adequate online access experienced by participants living in different residential homes. 

Next Steps – An Insights Hub for London

Following on from this initial project to demonstrate the value and importance of non-traditional, community-led insights we are about to embark on a creating a prototype ‘Community Insights Hub’. The hub will become the home for community-led insights from across London, and a place where communities can creatively share their ideas, aspirations, experiences, needs, priorities and successes. We hope that in the long term it will contribute to strengthening the connection between community expertise and policy making.

We are excited to be working with colleagues from the Stay Home Stories project to develop content for the hub, so watch this space for updates!