Artists and young people collaborate on project to awaken the forgotten and untold stories of Ashton Court

Artist Jack Young and theatre maker Elinor Lower share a common fascination with collective history – not in interrogating the version that is written, but in reclaiming the many stories and experiences that have fallen through the gaps.

Pulling at the threads of working class stories, Black stories and queer stories, they have been working with a group of young people from across Bristol to bring to life the forgotten narratives of Ashton Court.

After their first sold-out event, they will come together again on January 26 for Haunting Ashton Court – a night of performance, theatre, spoken word and music to memoralise their discoveries.

There is free transport to the event for those that need it; attendees only need to specify when they register.

Young, Lower and Willow Simmons – one of the young people participating in the project – spoke to Bristol24/7 about their experiences.

Can you describe what excites and inspires you about the idea of forgotten narratives, and different versions of history?

WS: “There are two types of story: those told, and those forgotten – and the vast majority are forgotten. By divorcing ourselves from the commonly told narrative, we effectively retell the story of this planet, and we see a parallel history. Surely history seen from the eyes of the oppressed is more accurate than that from the eyes of the oppressor.”

JY: “I think the story that we have been told about ourselves at our schools and in the halls of power – about our city and about England, has deliberately obscured so much about the realities of how this country was able to become one of the most powerful that ever existed.

“When you create spaces to bring forgotten narratives to life, it shows that history is a fluid, living thing. There is a vital empowerment that comes with knowing that even though official archives may have erased or not seen as worthy the voices of, for example in our project – working-class people at Ashton Court, that through art-making the stories can be changed.

“The perspective can be shifted, and those voices can move from being just lists of occupations and objects to fully realised, human subjects with their own histories to tell.”

Photo: Jack Young/Elinor Lower

EL: “As Jack says, we are still living with the effects of centuries of dehumanisation of anyone other than the ruling classes. Through the careful preservation of their letters and diaries, we are afforded partial insight into their lives, while swathes of the population are reduced to, at best, records of births, marriages and deaths, and at worst, numbers in a scrawled bill of sale.

“To fill in these gaps with the details of a life lived, like imagined cherished memories, favourite foods and close relationships, is to join the movement towards reclaiming a collective history.”

How did this collaboration first arise, and what have you gained from working together?

JY: “I had been doing some research with the photographer Anthony Elliott at Ashton Court through Artspace Lifespace, trying to find out more information about working-class voices related to the house and its history.

“The more I delved, the more I realised that this wasn’t a project that could be confined between the two of us, and needed to expand into a more immersive project, which is where Eli and I started chatting about the possibility of a community theatre and writing project with young people local to the area. And as both of our participatory work is mainly involved in working with young people in the arts, this felt like a natural place to start.

“I knew Eli was also interested in the possibility of working creatively and critically from archives, and their theatre-making background pairs really well with my writing background, so I feel like I’m learning a lot about devising and the use of space that theatre affords through working with Eli, particularly as this project is so site-specific to Ashton Court.”

EL: “On a project as potentially expansive as this, it’s absolutely invaluable to be working in collaboration with Jack. He’s been running archive-centred work with young people for the past year about other Bristol sites such as Hartcliffe’s tobacco factories, Leigh Woods, and Tyntesfield, so he’s developed this brilliant rolodex of prompts and ways into thinking about history that make the density of documents so much more accessible and open to playing with.”

Photo: Jack Young/Elinor Lower

What were the creative processes by which the participating artists and performers made the work we will see on January 26?

JY: “It’s been a really fascinating combination of both our practices as participatory artists. From the off we felt it was really important there wasn’t any ‘top-down’ didactic ‘history teaching’ from the two of us, and instead wanted the young people involved to curate their own way through the archive, so we began by collating huge amounts of collage material.

“This ranged from the specifics of the Ashton archives – such as deeds, letters, photos, paintings, extracts from books etc. – to wider material such as the current toxic debate led by the right-wing press against institutions like the National Trust, in their attempts to finally place their houses and objects within their colonial history. We also used snippets from poems, paintings, and other things we thought might be of interest.

“The group then started building a living collage based on parts they were interested in — what they’ve described as a ‘mood board’. From these initial points of interest we began devising ideas around character, places and historical periods. We employed a combination of theatre and creative writing activities, from collective histories, to movement-based responses to the archives, to thinking through reworking paintings found at Ashton Court and short film production.

“Alongside these projects, we hosted guest sessions with artists such as Jay Zorenti-Nakhid (associate director at Tobacco Factory Theatres) and filmmaker Dan Guthrie. As a result, the performance on the night is going to be very eclectic, immersive, and really exciting. It represents a real ‘reclaiming’ of the grand and decaying music room at Ashton Court.”

EL: “At the centre of all of the making we’ve been doing are these really emotive discussions we’ve had as a group about the ‘ownership’ of history, and this revolutionary spirit that is really alive in the young people – they’re totally aware of the ways in which narratives have been manipulated and sanitised, and so this creative exploration has been fuelled by a desire to disrupt and crack open all the ‘traditional’ stories.”

As we chart our own lives today, are we learning from the mistakes and omissions from our archives?

WS: “No. We continue to hide the truth, we ignore, we whitewash, we suppress. If anyone learns anything from this, it should be to view the world from the oppressed perspective, something our society has never done and continues not to. There is no justice in the past or present.”

JY: “I think there is a gradual shifting emerging, but it’s all too gradual and with far too much backlash from those in power, (who benefit most from the centuries-old stories we’ve been told), but at least in Bristol, there is a sense that people are tired of waiting for change to happen from above, through the history curriculum or local government.

“There are so many incredible things now happening on the ground which are turning the tide on the stories we tell about places like Bristol, both amplifying historically marginalised voices, as well as holding people who benefitted from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to account.

“So I guess in this sense, a learning and evolving is taking place. I’m thinking of writers and activists in Bristol like Zakiya McKenzie and Ros Martin, as well as community groups like Countering Colston, Cargo Movement and the Bristol Radical History Group (to name but a few) who are doing so much to complicate the stories we tell.

“If Haunting Ashton Court can be one part of that conversation, then everyone involved would be completely honoured to be in such fine company.”

Haunting Ashton Court: An Evening of Performance is at Ashton Court Mansion on January 26 at 7pm. Tickets are available at www.eventbrite.co.uk.

Main photo: Maria Meco Sanchez

Read more: Bristol’s Cultural Highlights of 2023

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