The Mixed Museum and SuAndi awarded AIM grant!
We are delighted to announce that The Mixed Museum has been awarded a New Stories New Audiences grant by the Association of Independent Museums for ‘SussedBlackWoman’, a collaborative project with writer SuAndi, one of Britain’s leading Black mixed race writers and poets.
About the New Stories New Audiences grant
The New Stories New Audiences (NSNA) grants - an award scheme for Association of Independent Museum (AIM) members funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) - supports AIM organisations to increase their impact by working with a new partner to identify new stories and to try something new.
The Mixed Museum is one of fourteen independent museum organisations to be funded by AIM in its 2022 round of NSNA grants.
About 'SussedBlackWoman'
Our funded project ‘SussedBlackWoman’ is a collaboration between The Mixed Museum (TMM) and SuAndi – one of Britain’s leading Black mixed race writers, poets and arts practitioners - which will share Manchester’s history of racial mixing through a focus on SuAndi’s life and creative work.
Over the course of 2023, we will develop a digital resource highlighting the history of racial mixing in North West England based on letters, poems, photographs, narratives and other materials provided by SuAndi.
Also informed by creative workshops led by SuAndi with pupils at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Saturday Schools programme, the resource will not only be targeted at a new audience for The Mixed Museum – 13-18 year olds – but will involve this Gen Z cohort in the curation and sharing of SuAndi’s history.
I am thrilled that the NSNA grant will help The Mixed Museum preserve and share the work and life history of one of our favourite writers. SuAndi’s monodrama The Story of M – now on the EdExcel A Level Curriculum – is one of the richest and most poignant literary works reflecting on the longstanding and multifaceted presence of Britain’s mixed race families. As much discussion of SuAndi’s phenomenal writing and arts career is in print publications or behind academic paywalls, it will also be a joy to help make her work and life accessible to a new audience through our creative, digital platform.
Dr Chamion Caballero, Director of The Mixed Museum
Sharing SuAndi's life and work via our digital platform offers a new generation an opportunity to engage with and learn more about a social history that has often been misrepresented by outsiders. It will also help expand TMM’s knowledge into best engagement practices for young audiences.
Know this - I am 100% a Black woman who embraces her Mixed Race identity otherwise visually my Liverpool Irish mother would be “Invisible” and I am the product of her and my Nigerian father. Some might say a dangerous combination, but I believe that my strength and resilience comes from both my parents. Now with this support I have been given the opportunity to have my lived experience archived for future readers; those whose have lived similar experiences and those who have not.
SuAndi
The AIM NSNA scheme is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The scheme will be open again for applications by AIM members in summer 2023.
