What Happens in a Humanities Lab: Open the Box with Tessa Harris

This creative writing workshop will include a brief tour of the newly restored archaeology stores in the basement of Sam Alex and a series of writing exercises centred around boxes chosen during the tour from the stores. We will be thinking about the relationships between these objects and their history (both the recent history of flooding on campus that enabled their re-emergence and their history as objects of value in various different ways) and bringing them back up into the light as prompts for imaginative and creative research into these objects that have been removed their context.

Participants will need to bring their own pens/pencils and paper for writing.

What Happens in a Humanities Lab is a new series of events, hosted by academics from across the humanities to bring their material culture specialisms into the lab in the form of practical skills workshops. They are available to staff and students across the whole University of Manchester. Sessions include artefacts and creative writing, indigo dyeing, building an origami disaster bowl, Early Modern candle making and mummifying an orange!

We’re encouraging creativity and discovery whilst learning new skills. Get creative in these workshops, collaborate with others from across the university and come see what a Humanities lab is all about.