Lauren Sleight Left

Emma Foottit Top right

Chris Hofmann Bottom right

A s the interview team we thought it was appropriate to hold a behind the scenes interview (Link on the right!) of each other on some questions we had about our individual experiences with our exhibition. Along with a picture of us all waving to you, we have added some interesting quotes from each of us answering the questions below.

Chris: I’m a 2nd year Politics and Spanish student at Warwick. I'm 23 and I've spent most of my life living abroad in Mexico, Brazil, Germany (you might have been able to tell from my surname); all over, apart from the UK. I am passionate about charity work and hope to use my language skills in the NGO field someday. For now, I'll resign myself to Mario Party, hanging out with my friends - Coronavirus permitting - and sleeping. I've gotten involved with the interview team because I love getting to know people and I am really interested in finding out about student life before I went to uni.

Emma: I am currently finishing my first year of studies in French with Linguistics. When I was 8, I moved from the UK to the Czech Republic and in secondary school I went on an exchange program to Paris for a year with an organisation called AFS, of which I was a volunteer. At Warwick, I am a member of the Women’s squash team and I am helping to create the exhibition you will hopefully be a part of. I wanted to take part in this research project because I think it’s fascinating learning about the place I attend every day. I have created my own experiences in the Humanities building and in other places around the University. I would like to be educated on other people’s memories as well. I think that engaging with Alumni, would be the most enriching way of obtaining this goal and thus I joined the interview team. I look forward to hearing about your memories from you directly.

Lauren: I am currently completing my 3rd year studying History and Politics and I am from Bristol. As a history student, I was excited to find out more about how the department has changed since the Humanities building was first built. It has been illuminating to find out about not only the differences, but also the similarities, between my experience as a student and that other students, from across the last 50 years. I have done some interviewing before, running focus groups with young people, discussing how Brexit has shaped their opinions on politics. Therefore, I was excited by the prospect of getting involved with collecting oral histories. By interviewing alumni, I hope to give a personal touch to the exhibition and bring the story of the Arts’ student experience alive.

What have you learnt from the process?

Chris: “I thought interviews were really controlled in a way, but it doesn’t really work like that. There is no control.”

Emma: ‘’I get very stressed when talking in front of a group or to people I’ve never met before. So, participating in meetings and speaking before everyone and conducting interviews has really pushed me out of my comfort zone which I really appreciate because I find it hard to do that.’’

Why did you get interested in the project?

Lauren: “On one hand I was just interested in finding out about the history. I really enjoy seeing what is on the Instagram page and looking at all the archive material that we have found. On the other hand, I want to do curation after university, and like to have the chance to do a project where we are basically creating from scratch an exhibition and doing the interviews and finding the archive material. I have not had any other experience like that at university.”

What have you enjoyed about the project?

Chris: “Traditional museums don’t engage people with social media online and ways people want to be engaged with nowadays. Whether COVID had happened or not, museums would have had to start using this technology (Google Arts). So, it’s a bit like we’re pioneering this movement that’s going on.”

How has COVID 19 effected the project, and what positives can we take from this experience?

Lauren: “I feel like I’m still doing normal university life but over the phone.”

Emma “Before (COVID19) we were sort of limited to the boxes in the MRC and now we’ve got so much more room. We can post more of what we want to post rather than just keeping to the original theme of each box. The only thing is I was really looking forward to the champagne of the open night.”

Lauren: “The experience has been enlightening to see how much more we can do online, than I originally thought. In my head the online was just extra, whereas I feel now that we are properly utilising it. COVID has opened new doors.”