Knowsley’s Borough of Culture

Kirkbiography

As with all biographies, they are an account of someone’s life written by someone else. Our project, Kirkbiography, is a community project offering local people the opportunity to share their stories, films and photographs, so as to celebrate and tell the many histories of Kirkby, past and present.

It is one of Knowsley’s Township projects, which is part of the many cultural activities taking place on the run up to the Knowsley Borough of Culture in 2022.

Borough of Culture is part of the Liverpool City Region’s Culture Programme which provides funding to each borough so that they can celebrate the things that make them unique. And 2022 is our year to shine!

Knowsley is a borough of storytellers with many famous writers, such as Willy Russell, Phil Redmond and Alan Bleasedale, coming from the area, as well as links to William Shakespeare and Edward Lear through Knowsley Hall. Therefore, we have chosen ‘Storytelling’ as our theme for 2022 and we want our Knowsley communities to tell their stories in creative and unusual ways.

Every Knowsley town and village will have the opportunity to celebrate their fascinating stories and heritage through a range of events, projects and exhibitions throughout 2022, and Kirkbiography is an exciting opportunity for Kirkby residents to tell theirs!

Whilst the Borough of Culture year itself is in 2022, we need time between now and then to get people involved and on board; source film and photography footage; identify what and how we share these film events and where they take place.

At every stage of this process, we want local communities in their town to inform, guide and where possible, take the lead on the events taking place on their doorstep. So for each of the BoC Township projects, we are to staging ‘Cultural Conversations’ to meet and recruit local people, discuss ideas and bring together a pro-active working group for that town, to make their Borough of Culture year as exciting as possible. Due to Covid, these conversations are all taking place online for now but you can contact us at any time.

The next Cultural Conversation for Kirkby is scheduled for Wednesday 4 November, 6.30 – 8pm but we want to hear from you now, so if you have any interesting stories pertaining to Kirkby; any film footage you are happy to share or photographs that reference a particular place or time in Kirkby’s history, please do get in touch asap.

This is a huge mapping exercise but one we hope snowballs into a new archive for Kirkby, presenting a broad view of the town from personal, social and industrial perspectives.

For more information, contact:

Dan Pendleton
Participation & Engagement Officer (Borough of Culture)
[email protected] / 0151 443 4918