The World in a Cube: Creative challenge report
A Birkbeck/New Media Networks/Tate & Lyle collaborations sponsored by Creative Works London
A Birkbeck/New Media Networks/Tate & Lyle collaborations sponsored by Creative Works London
Tate & Lyle has a unique archive of 300 films, dating back to the 1950s and 60s and featuring places and events all over the world as well as in their factory refinery on the Thames in east London, opened in 1878. New Media Networks (NMN), an international creative company based in east London has the licence to Tate & Lyle’s archive for educational purposes.
This film archive created by a global company should be digitised and made available to the public. Its significance to East London cannot be overstated and it is important that the communities whose families helped to build the company’s history are enabled to engage or re-engage with this heritage.
In a collaboration between Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image and NMM, this archive was the focus of a pilot knowledge exchange project, ‘The World in a Cube’, to explore ways of taking part of Tate & Lyle's collection of films about the sugar industry and sharing it with new audiences. Developed in partnership with Tate & Lyle Sugars, and with support from Creativeworks London, the key aim of the project was to research and develop creative opportunities for public engagement with this collection.
The research report can be found here.
As part of the project, a challenge was put out to young and emerging filmmakers to create new short films audio/visual responses to the archive content using a small selection of the Tate & Lyle material. The best submissions will be announced on October 14 and will be viewable on YouTube.