On 26th February 2025, English Heritage’s national youth engagement team responsible for delivering Shout Out Loud, hosted their annual event, this year in the beautiful Yorkshire Museum and Gardens. Almost 100 people attended, including fellow young people and industry professionals and we shared a jam-packed day full of incredible performances, panels and workshops that centred on the importance of youth engagement in the heritage sector.
We started off the day with talks from partners on youth engagement, starting with Rachel Plant from the Aardman Academy. She emphasised the importance of inspiring the next generation to be creative. In particular, she covered how source material is important in creating stop motion animation, including the many beautiful sites that English Heritage has to offer.
We also heard from Photoworks on their latest collaborative project with Shout Out Loud. ‘Echoes: Stone Circles, Community and Heritage’ is a new photography exhibition which is running until 7th September 2025 in Stonehenge’s exhibition space. It was amazing to hear from Sally, one of the artists behind the exhibition, who was really passionate about both her craft and the impact that involving school children in creating her art had had for those children.
Next we got to hear from young people themselves who have benefited from taking the lead in youth engagement projects. This is one of my favourite things about Shout Out Loud, that it gives us real leadership opportunities as young people and in such a variety of exciting ways, including through creative industry projects like dance, music and art.
Speaking of young people taking the lead, just before lunch were a series of workshops. I had the opportunity to be part of a team of young producers and people from the Council of British Archaeology’s Youth Advisory Board who created and then led a workshop on networking. It was wonderful to see how our brainstorming and planning sessions came to fruition on the day and facilitated fascinating conversations with like-minded individuals, and to get to hear about the heritage of their homes.
After lunch, we enjoyed live performances from We Make Culture’s Young Musician’s Project. Four original songs were performed by one or multiple young musicians who had written them themselves, inspired by the stories from English Heritage’s sites. These young people were so talented and it really showed how We Make Culture and Shout Out Loud’s support enables young people to tell their own stories of heritage.
Following these were several film screenings, including the premieres of the winners and runners up of the Animated Histories Film Festival which you can watch here. We also saw two incredible short films created by young people to tell stories, inspired by English Heritage sites that are not always focused on. ‘Kill the King’, a collaboration with Spit Game UK was a sci-fi exploration of Eltham Palace produced and performed by young people, and ‘Beyond the Plaques’, a collaboration with the National Youth Ballet, told the stories of inspirational women who are blue plaque holders, through specially choreographed dance and original music.
We had several quick lightning talks from the Council of British Archaeology’s Youth Advisory Board, the Heritage Network Youth Forum, and the National Youth Ballet, before ending the day with our keynote speaker, artist Robin Sullivan. It was the perfect end to an excellent day with Robin reiterating the importance of community engagement and co-creation when we are telling stories of history and heritage.
This was such an inspiring day and I’m so grateful I was able to attend, and in such a heritage-filled city too. Watch my ‘come with me’ video below to get more of an insight into the day!