The Memory Bike: Recording and archiving East London’s oral histories

Based at UCL East and linked to the UCL Urban Room, the Memory Bike has been designed by students and researchers working in The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty of the Built Environment and The School for the Creative and Cultural Industries. It is equipped with a mobile table and stools to facilitate interviews and oral histories and can carry audio recording equipment in its flight case. Supported by UCL Special Collections, the bike will generate a new collaborative digital archive of oral and public history, sounds and feelings.

The transportable, community-oriented educational resource will support the documentation and recording of local voices and everyday soundscapes and will be used by students and researchers, as well as being available to book for community, educational, and other users in the boroughs surrounding the Olympic Park.

Why is it important?

Since the London 2012 Olympics, the area surrounding the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has been undergoing one of the most dramatic transformations of any part of central London. The park is now home to UCL East, UCL’s East London campus which opened its first building, One Pool Street, this year. The objective of the Memory Bike is to contribute to the foundation of place-based knowledge and memory, which is widely understood to be the cornerstone of inclusive, sustainable, innovation and regeneration – this will be focussed on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the surrounding areas.

Haidy Geismar, Director of the School for the Creative and Cultural Industries said:

“The Memory Bike will enable UCL students and researchers to engage and share knowledge with local cultural institutions and community groups, and to deliver training and events using our digital recording equipment focused on audio documentation. As we look to UCL’s growing presence in East London, it is increasingly important to develop resources that can be reached and accessed in a variety of locations, venues and communities, going out to our partners and collaborators as well as bringing them into our new campus, making our facilities an embedded resource in local projects.”

The future

The Memory Bike will be available to UCL students and researchers wishing to work in community settings with audio recording, oral and public history projects. It can also be booked out by external partners and organizations wishing to develop their capacity in this area. Designed to be accessible to as wide a range of participants as possible, we have also developed an ethical framework for collaboration and digital collecting.