Your Involvement

Your Birmingham - Tell Us Your Birmingham Story

Tell us about your personal experiences of Birmingham. The ‘Your Birmingham’ gallery will explore the histories and stories of a wide range of local people through objects, text, photographs, audio and film. We will be working with many individuals and groups to collect objects and stories for this gallery and for our website.

Maybe you can tell us about….

• The people, places and events you feel have been important to Birmingham during your lifetime.
• The personal stories you have about living or working in Birmingham.
• The objects that you own that help to tell these stories.

You tell us your stories in one of the following ways:

• Use our on-line form
• Go to the Your Birmingham group on Flickr where you can upload photos of your objects and tell your stories.
• Contact Richard Statham on 0121 303 2782 or email be.involved@birmingham.gov.uk

Commemorative Bronze medal for Birmingham inner ring road 1971 

Consultations

We will consult with Birmingham people about the development of the new galleries and will continue to do this throughout the galleries’ development.

Advisory Groups

Birmingham people can also get involved through our advisory groups. We have three groups who meet every quarter and who are involved in all aspects of the history galleries development.

• The Community Action Panel is a group of local people from different backgrounds and cultures. They include community workers, artists, teachers, parents and musicians. They bring the visitor’s perspective to the project.
• The Schools Advisory Group consists of Birmingham education advisors and teachers. This group advises on the specific needs and interests of school groups.
• The Historians Advisory Group is a group of academics and community historians. Its members have expert knowledge about the history of Birmingham and its people. They are helping to explore themes and storylines for the new galleries.

If you would like to find out more about these advisory groups please contact Richard Statham on 0121 303 2782 or email be.involved@birmingham.gov.uk

Projects

We are also working with local people on projects for the new galleries. These include textile projects, film, poetry and oral history projects. Each project expands upon a theme that will be explored in the new galleries and will be displayed alongside it.

Young people involved in a community project

Looking for…..

Birmingham Suburban Stories

As part of the development of the new Birmingham history galleries we are developing a number of oral history projects on aspects of Birmingham life. Snippets of oral history interviews will be used in the gallery to look at three themes: living in the suburbs, working in the suburbs and leisure in the suburbs. The gallery will look at the period up to or around 1945. The museum is keen to identify individuals who are willing to be interviewed for the project. Because of the time period that this represents we are also keen to interview people who may have family stories that fit the themes. We are particularly interested in the following:

• Working at Austin Motor Works, Longbridge
• Working at Cadbury’s
• Working at Chad Valley, Harborne 
• Moving to Kingstanding or Weoley Castle estates

Please contact: Jo-Ann Curtis (Curator History). Email: jo_curtis@birmingham.gov.uk  or telephone: 0121 303 1672 or 0121 303 8775. Address: Curatorial Services, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham B3 3DH.