The Legacy Project
An archive of voices from the future
In a familiar Bristol street, the decades are slipping by. Buildings crumble and decay as phoenix-like blocks of flats emerge from the rubble. Shop-fronts change, tenants come and go. At one end of the road, an oak tree steadily unfurls its spine amidst the spinning seasons. The year is 2020, 2030, 2040…
The Project
The Legacy encourages researchers to reflect on their work and assume responsibility for some of its applications. It is not easy to anticipate every possible outcome but by engaging in the project and consulting with a broader public about inclusivity and social responsibility, researchers are doing what they can. If the process forces them to stop and think, to take control and to respond to new input and discoveries then the future will be a better place.
From April-October 2020, we collaborated with University of Bristol’s Public Engagement Unit & Doctoral College to develop the process. PhD researchers, Nikita Gandhi and Debbie Nicol, were the first to follow the entire programme online during lock-down. Their finished monologues are available here.
If you would like to find out more about The Legacy process & our other Public Engagement work, please get in touch.
In partnership with the Public Engagement Team at the University of Bristol, Kilter is encouraging researchers of every discipline to examine the legacy of their work.
Participating academics are being guided through Kilter’s new step-by-step process which equips them with the skills to anticipate possible future scenarios that have somehow been influenced by the work they are doing today.
These scenarios are then mapped onto a generic Bristol street, which is populated with future generations of Bristolians. Our diverse children and children’s children: the heirs of our legacy.
Each resident of the street is imagined and performed by an actor who records a short monologue from the future, written to address us all in 2020. What will our descendants have to say? Will they thank us or blame us? Forgive or forget us?
Almost everything in our world today has to some degree been manipulated by our forebears. If you could leave a message for someone who contributed to each aspect of your life and your surrounding society & environment… what message would you leave?
