In Spring 2021, Moniaive Initiative collaborated on our first heritage project with Jackie and Chris Lee of Moniaive-based Artemis Scotland, which specialises in heritage interpretation.  In the immediate aftermath of the COVID pandemic, we created a community-led heritage project to highlight HOME, and shared the results by turning the street-facing windows of Moniaive into an open air museum.

We asked participants to become ‘heritage detectives’ to uncover the stories of their homes. We asked them to find what is special about the places they live in, and to uncover stories about their homes and the people who once lived there. We helped by providing regular blogs, giving guidance on how and where to start looking for more information. We also created extra street-wide information, using census returns to give a wider picture of village life.

The residents of Moniaive then created window displays for the May Bank Holiday weekend, turning the village into a mini museum, as their displays became part of a trail around the village.  Some offered ‘spare’ windows to those outside the village, to encourage wider participation. All the participating windows were given a large project logo sticker, so that everyone would know which windows they were welcome to look in. We asked that participants consider privacy and security issues when sharing their stories, by not referencing living persons, or sharing photos of them or their homes, without their express permission. 

Alongside this, we also created three new Heritage Walk leaflets, highlighting some of the lesser-know landmarks on each of the trails. These have since been updated and reprinted.