Parts of East Yorkshire Recreated in Minecraft

East Riding Archives are celebrating the success of their innovative Blockdown project, designed to collect young people’s experiences of the COVID-19 lockdown using the Minecraft videogame as a creative medium and storytelling platform.

Thought to be the first archives project of its kind in the country, the East Riding Blockdown (ERB) project launched in January, after receiving £4500 grant funding from The Audience Agency, as part of their Digitally Democratising Archives project.

The East Riding Blockdown created an Archiverse world, a virtual recreation of the Treasure House in Beverley in Minecraft. Participants built or digitally wrote about their experiences, and archivist Hannah Stamp then entered the Archiverse and ‘archived’ their creations in the real-world East Riding Archives.

Participants could explore the virtual Treasure House, meet the team, and see what other young people had created.

Archivist Hannah Stamp explains :

“The ERB project was an offshoot of the East Riding Archives’ larger covid-19 experiences project, in which we asked East Riding communities to donate their recorded experiences of the pandemic and lockdown to the archives. Those records will be permanently preserved in the collections, as part of over 800 years of East Riding documented history. One thing that was missing from what the archives team received was the youth voice!”

East Riding Blockdown engaged with over 60 young people aged between 5-15, whose average age was eight. It created an online Minecraft world called the Archiverse- the central learning and engagement space for young people to craft their creations.

The project consisted of in-person Archiverse Minecraft events at Bridlington Library, East Riding Archives in the Treasure House, and Beverley Library (with the Teenage Reading Group).  It also included a school workshop at Springhead Primary School in Anlaby.

Ultimately, it has created an archive collection of young people’s experiences of lockdown which will be permanently preserved in the archives.

The Audience Agency funded ten projects across England, aiming to connect under-represented communities with archives using digital technology.

Councillor Mike Medini, portfolio holder for culture, leisure, libraries and customer services, said :

“The legacy of this brilliant and unique project is a collection of young people’s experiences of lockdown in the archives, preserved for future generations to enjoy and learn from. It will inspire young people and nurture their curiosity in archives- after all, they are our future service users!”

The project has not finished yet; young people can still take part in the project by attending an Archiverse Minecraft event, or sending in their lockdown creations along with a completed registration form (which can be downloaded from the project website). There are events next week during October half term at the Treasure House in Beverley on 24 and 27 October. Book a timeslot now at https://eastridingblockdown.org/whats-on/

Hannah Stamp added :

“We’re now experimenting with our Oculus Virtual Reality headset and the Sketchfab 3D platform https://sketchfab.com/EastRidingArchives  to look at creative ways of interacting with the 3D creations which participants had built in our Archiverse.

“In association with East Riding Museums and the council’s Policy team, we are also looking to bring our Archiverse workshop to local schools working with traveller, migrant and refugee communities, exploring diverse lived experiences and archiving these as the project’s first phase.”

Visit the East Riding Blockdown website : www.eastridingblockdown.org