We unearth the untold stories of people of colour living, working and putting down roots in South Yorkshire over hundreds of years.
We do this by exploring archival records, using creative practices to reimagine the lives contained within them, and sharing these stories in public exhibitions.
This project was originally developed by our creative director Désirée Reynolds during her six month residency at Sheffield City Archives in 2021.
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Désirée ReynoldsReynolds uncovered and reimagined the lives of working class, African-Caribbean people reduced to bare facts and figures in archival documents. She also used creative responses to grapple with the violence, erasure and conflict of the archival process itself. Collaborating with other creatives in Sheffield, Reynolds then showcased this work at exhibitions in Moor Market and Sheffield General Cemetery. She also held a series of one-off public events with festivals, schools and community hubs. Her reflections on this experience are detailed in a series of articles produced for Now Then.
The project is largely inspired by Swedish writer, Sven Lindqvist, who produced the popular “how to” guide Gräv där du står (or “Dig Where You Stand”) in the 1970s. This guide encouraged and helped everyday working people to explore their own histories. It also gave a name to a growing socialist movement that spread across Europe in the late twentieth century.
In this iteration of Dig Where You Stand, emphasis is placed on the racial dimension of working class histories. In particular, there is a focus on stories from before 1945. This is to address mainstream narratives about migration in Britain, which suggest that people of colour only came to these shores after World War II. Our work shows that people of colour are deeply embedded in the history of South Yorkshire. This overlooked regional history nuances wider accounts of migration, diaspora and the operation of race and racism in Britain.
We use creative practice to disrupt the inherent violence and harm that comes from the marginalisation and erasure of people of colour from the archival record. In this way, the project is also inspired by Saidiya Hartman’s work on ‘critical fabulation’, which demonstrates the power of using creative approaches to address racial violence and erasure in the archive. Significantly, it also makes clear the responsibilities of reimagining lives reduced to partial facts and figures in the archives, and gives voice to the pain of never being able to fully reconcile the past. This is a fundamental aspect of Dig Where You Stand. We seek to place ourselves amongst the fragments of history and touch, consider and present each piece with tenderness and care.
Ultimately, by disrupting both historical accounts and processes, we seek to empower racially marginalised groups in the present. This means encouraging people of colour to assert their claim over the archives. Our central message is clear: you have long been here, now come find out for yourselves. Dig Where You Stand.
Core Team
DWYS is in partnership with Sheffield City Archives and the Centre for Equity & Inclusion
Désirée Reynolds is a writer whose fiction is concerned with working class Black women, internal landscapes and a continuous struggle against the white, male gaze, notions of beauty, race and being. Committed to anti racism and intersectionality, she draws on her experiences of these to make her creative work. Her first novel, Seduce, was published in 2013 to much acclaim by Peepal Tree Press, and her short stories have been widely published in various publications and online.
Dr Alex Rajinder Mason is passionate about pursuing racial justice through the arts. His work primarily focuses on the relationship between systemic racism, education and literature. He coordinates various projects and events in Sheffield that platform artists of colour and draw attention to significant social issues. Alex has worked with Désirée Reynolds for several years and is proud to project manage Dig Where You Stand through his role at the Centre for Equity & Inclusion.
Cheryl Bailey has been the senior archivist at Sheffield City Archives for 17 years. Alongside fellow archivists, she looks after Sheffield’s written heritage which spans back over 800 years. The City Archives is rich in information about Sheffield’s past, but archival silences are present – the unintentional or purposeful absence of documentation which results in gaps meaning we are not always able to represent the past accurately. To address this concern, Cheryl has been working with writer Désirée Reynolds to examine Sheffield’s archival silences, critically question the history we know and determine whose story has not yet been told.
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