Street Cosmos
With funding from the Digital Innovation and Engagement Fund (DIEF) in 2021, Durham University launched its highly successful Street Museum, which transformed the streets of underserved neighbourhoods in County Durham into museums. The collaboration brought world-class space science and technology research into communities by using culture and creativity.
Involvement in Mindsets + Missions secured the next steps of the Street Museum programme and saw the launch of Street Cosmos.
Street Cosmos demonstrated the power of research happening in communities, working with 30 artists and 37 scientists to engage over 4,000 people across 90 co-created events around County Durham, in some of the most underserved communities in the UK.
“Space is massive. It’s fundamental to who we are and what we are, but they don’t know it – and this teaches it. There are some kids who don’t learn well in school but they’ll learn well in community centres, and the university comes to them.”
The collaboration brought together community centre managers, leading researchers, private space companies, science communicators and artists, all working with our communities in the place where they live.
The project has successfully proven the importance of bringing the excitement of space into communities and has also shown how communities can make the excitement of space science their very own.
“Absolutely brilliant! The range of activities was spot on and in particular it was wonderful to meet and interact with people from Durham University. A fantastic way to broaden the horizons and raise the aspirations of the next generation. A huge thank you to all involved!”
Street Cosmos has laid critical groundwork for future work on a major Place Partnership initiative, Light Years, which has funded further Street Cosmos activities such as Spooky Action. The project also won Durham University Museums the Campaign for Learning’s Family Learning Award in Innovation.
Additionally, the project has sparked new relationships across universities, science research centres and community centres, with participants saying they felt these spaces and subjects were now more welcoming, relevant and part of their community.
Durham University Museums and partners are developing future iterations of this work, building on the Street Cosmos network and model to embed cultural placemaking, co-curation and space science engagement across more communities in the north east of England.
Takeaways
- Go where the excitement is (don’t force people to get excited about your passions).
- Capitalise on local expertise (from marketing, to tone, to minibus hire).
- WhatsApp groups are your friend (for comms and getting the best photos and videos).
- Big events are lots of work. But they are the best way to galvanise partnerships, reach lots of people… and have fun!