Research project
Empowering Women: Co-Producing Histories of Women and Energy in the Home
- Start date: 1 January 2023
- End date: 30 December 2024
- Funder: AHRC
- Primary investigator: Professor Abigail Harrison Moore
Value
£203, 707
Partners and collaborators
Leeds Museums and Galleries
Description
This Fellowship explores the benefits of co-producing energy history research with young people in museums. By collaboratively researching the histories of women and energy to co-produce a critical re-interpretation of domestic objects in Leeds Museums and Galleries' collections, we aim to facilitate a public conversation on who has the power to make the decisions that need to be made to create the post-carbon home of the twenty-first century.
I am working with Leeds Museum's established youth collective, the Preservative Party: a diverse group of 14-24 year olds. We have co-produced research founded in the numerous objects in the Leeds collections that represent the histories of energy but are rarely interpreted as such and never from the point of view of women influencing energy decisions.
Building on the Preservative Party's work to explore the overlooked histories of museum objects, we ask why it is important to understand how energy transformations were effected and often led by women in their homes? What can we learn from historic social and gendered drivers for change at a moment when we all need to transition to a post-carbon energy supply? How does co-production empower young people, often our contemporary leaders in climate activism?
The Fellowship is aimed at developing my research leadership through the co-production of research with young people. The project is founded on 25+ years of working together with Leeds Museums and Galleries to deliver educational engagement activities and teaching. But before now I have never consolidated my research expertise in histories of the c19th home and my leadership in educational engagement or co-produced research to work with the communities that I most want to learn from and impact - young people living in Leeds. Outcomes to date include an exhibition ‘Whose Power? Energy Change in the Home’, a zine and the podcast ‘Whose Power?’ https://whosepower.podbean.com/
Impact
Part of proposed FAHACS Impact Case Study.
See above for some of the impactful work we have completed already.
Publications and outputs
Whose Power?; Energy Change in the Home, exhibition first shown Jan-March 2024, Leeds City Museum, due to open again at Leeds Discovery Centre Autumn 2024, https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/arts-humanities-cultures/news/article/2597/school-of-fine-art-professor-and-award-winning-youth-group-launch-innovative-exhibition
Whose Power? Podcast, https://whosepower.podbean.com/
Twitter/X @presparty