Woven Communities: the Warp and the Weft aims to draw on practical basketry as an important tool for enhancing public engagement with museum collections and as a means of extending reminiscence work within museums and promoting design thinking. We will work with the Scottish Basketmakers Circle (SBC), our partners from an earlier project, and 5 new partners: National Museums of Rural Life, the Highland Folk Museum, the Scottish Fisheries Museum, Shetland Museum, and An Lanntair, a multi-arts centre on Lewis. The project has four key aims. First, we will carry out a series of public engagement activities in museums linked to their basketry collections with the aim of eliciting life histories and social memories, and thus increasing audience engagement. We have found that making and demonstrating craft activities such as basketry are very productive in reminiscence sessions. Yet while artefacts are often employed as important reference points for eliciting social memories, the actual practice of making such artefacts is only now being considered. Secondly, we will draw on the technical benefit of basket-makers working with museum curators to enhance knowledge of early 20th century Scottish basketry collections. Thirdly, we aim to explore the significance of basketry for design thinking. Because basketry is not replicable by machine, many design processes such as planning, problem-solving and innovation are embedded in the practical act of basket-work. This has led us to consider the value of thinking-in-practice and dynamic problem-solving attendant on basketry, as an important aspect of design thinking. In discussion with CraftScotland and the Craft Council, we will develop a paper for informing craft policy on this theme. Finally, the interactive nature of our website has led to us being approached by An Lanntair, Lewis, which has requested we contribute to their bi-lingual (Gaelic/English) dementia project, drawing on our practical basketry skills for eliciting hand-memories with elders with dementia on Lewis To achieve these aims we will conduct practical reminiscent events focussed around workshops and replica making in each venue. These will range from making Easter straw bonnets, fishing creels and sculls, to Traveller basketry, exploring the whole process from gathering raw materials (such as heather) to finished product, and involving all generations. Through the regionally specific nature of these events, it may even be possible to link artefacts in collections with descendants of former users or producers. We will invite a Masters student from Museum Studies in St Andrews to document and upload the data as part of their dissertation project. We will video record practitioners making key basket forms to further document memories and discussion linked to the events. This will also enable us to extend our capacity for conveying skills, and provide legacy material for use by museums. Outcomes will include increased public engagement with museum collections, and therefore enhanced impact, as more regional public contribute to knowledge about their own social history through practical engagement. This will lead to new and accessible insights to the social history of collections. Through working with makers, curators will gain improved documentation of collections. There will be greater understanding of the benefits of handwork for working with people with dementia; and of the value of handwork for design thinking through our policy document for craft and design education. Several of our partners have agreed to host study days tailored to their collections, which will further extend impact and public engagement, as will the international symposium which will form the culmination of the project. Several of our partners have also expressed a keen interest in developing a touring exhibition and catalogue following the project. We also aim to produce an illustrated and accessible book as further legacy of the project.

At its core our proposal will explore the role of creativity (film, music, soundscapes, visual arts, craft traditions) inspired by cultural assets (townscape heritage, coastal landscape setting and links to UNESCO World Heritage in mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar and the UK). This enhances and magnifies the impact of our AHRC 'Fragmented Heritage/ Curious Travellers' methodology that combines photographic imagery (crowd-sourced/ web-scraped and new imagery) together with mobile mapping data to digitally document cultural heritage sites in context, as an approach that anticipates change, given diverse challenges that place heritage at risk. The project will draw from Bagamoyo's rich heritage and cultural traditions, given Bagamoyo's strategic coastal location, with trading links across the Indian Ocean, past, present and future - including its boat-building traditions, role with salt production and the spice trade; the slave and ivory trade; its colonial past and linkage both with Christianity and Islam - the entry of Christianity into the interior; and with historical figures including Dr Livingstone whose body was brought to Bagamoyo upon his death in Malawi. Digital heritage researchers and creative researchers at Bradford and St Andrews will co-create artistic works with heritage and creative researchers at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and artists at TaSUBa (Bagamoyo's Arts and Cultural Institute - Taasisi ya Sanaa na Utamaduni Bagamoyo). Training will be given in digital methods and the output will include an entry to the film shorts category at the Zanzibar International Film Festival; and a real-time portal/art installation to be showcased at the vibrant Bagamoyo Arts Festival that will link places within Tanzania (Bagamoyo on Mainland and Zanzibar Stone Towns) and between Tanzania, England and Scotland as an innovative concept and alternate form of digital twinning 'Windows Across the Oceans'. The innovative digital heritage research will enhance inclusive engagement with the creative and cultural economy in Tanzania supporting cultural heritage tourism and cultural resource management. The installations will be used to highlight the universal value of world heritage to a global audience, the importance of conserving cultural heritage settings (townscape heritage, maritime heritage) to both local people and government in Tanzania and the linked understanding and meaning that comes from oral histories, craft traditions and other rich narratives. The project facilitates knowledge exchange and capacity building throughout, crucially involving TZ researchers to spend time in the UK, developing digital heritage skills to work with the Bagamoyo data, with additional financial support/ value-added from Erasmus+ funded activity As a result , with researchers from UDSM we will co-create a digital twin for the Historic City of Bagamoyo (on the UNESCO tentative world heritage list) and as part of this, generate Google StreetView-ready content to raise visibility for townscape heritage and to support local businesses. The digital twin will serve as a framework to unite Bagamoyo's tangible heritage (buildings, port and boat-building tradition, landscapes/ seascapes), and intangible narratives (stories, songs, cultural practices and craft knowledge) to help to document past and present way of life. The new, vibrant digital assets that are created through this project will 1) support local tour guides (helping to increase visibility as a tourism destination; and by creating digital resources that can enhance the tourism experience); 2) promote global citizenship and foster good community relations (helping to educate people, develop place-making and enhance civic pride); 3) develop use of IT through methods that support digital discovery (hidden heritage); 4) improve accessibility (equality, diversity and inclusion); 5) provide methods for long term monitoring of change to sites by heritage guardians.