CREATE PLACE Leadership Programme – Participatory Toolboxes

Are you passionate about heritage, digital innovation, and co-creation? Do you work with or support heritage initiatives or heritage volunteering communities in the North Staffordshire area? Join us for an interactive online session where we explore two innovative digital tools that empower communities to co-create meaning and engage with heritage.

Join us, Jane Lillystone (Heritage Programme Coordinator, City of Stoke-on-Trent) and Natalie Willatt (Community Volunteer Manager, Art UK) in this 90min online session, exploring some digital participatory toolboxes for heritage initiatives.

The session will feature:

• The #HeritagePlaces Citizen Partnership Platform, a National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported project led by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, aimed to promote active collaboration and give a ‘voice’ to heritage across Stoke-on-Trent – supporting people to share their views, ideas and perspectives. The platform will be making use of Decidim, an open-source platform for participatory democracy, it enables public consultation, collaborative design, and idea exchange.
• Art UK’s Tagger is a crowdsourcing tool that invites the public to help describe artworks by tagging visual elements, themes, and subjects. These tags enhance the discoverability of artworks online, making collections more accessible and searchable for researchers, educators, and heritage organisations. It’s a valuable resource for heritage initiatives looking to engage communities and enrich digital interpretation of public art collections.

Join us for a special online session where we explore two different ways of allowing communities to co-create meaning with digital tools. We will be able to try out these tools and discuss their potential for engaging our communities both in person and online.

Delivered by CREATE PLACE in partnership with Jane Lillystone (Heritage Programme Coordinator, City of Stoke-on-Trent) and Natalie Willatt (Community Volunteer Manager, Art UK).

This event aligns with the Stoke-on-Trent Cultural Strategy 2022–2028, which champions collaboration, creativity, and heritage-led regeneration to build a more inclusive and vibrant city.

Art UK is the online home for the UK’s public art collections, making artworks from museums, galleries, and public spaces accessible to everyone through a freely searchable digital platform.

The Create Place Heritage & Digital Leadership Programme, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, supports professionals and community leaders working at the intersection of heritage, co-creation and placemaking. It offers opportunities to build leadership skills, learn from and with peers, become part of a larger heritage network, and it explores various digitally supported approaches to heritage-led regeneration. For more information and upcoming events, visit https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/createplace/