Share your Green Space Stories at Salford Re-discovered

Green Space Stories is a partnership between the UK's National Parks, Walk the Plank and the University of Salford, as part of Green Space Dark Skies, commissioned by UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.

By sharing your story, you will be contributing to an online archive that anyone will be able to access to understand our connection with the landscape.

The project will bring together the stories of thousands of people from across the UK, sharing their relationship with nature and the landscape, whether hills or mountains, lakes or beaches, woodlands or local parks.

Why should you share your story?

By sharing your story, you will help to create a snapshot of people’s relationships with nature in 2022.  Thousands of stories will be gathered in an online archive that anyone will be able to access to understand our connection with the landscape.  You don’t have to have been a Lumenator to tell us your story, so please encourage people you know to share their experiences too.

What will happen to your story?

The anonymous stories, photographs and recordings will be available to view through our online dashboard soon.  Anyone can sift and sort through them, based on a particular theme or where they were collected, for example.

The archive might be used by artists to inspire a song, poem, artwork, film or book.  It might be used by government organisations or local councils to inform and shape policies.  It might be used by researchers looking for information about how certain themes emerge in our relationship with the landscape.  Educators or community groups might use it to find stories from people of certain ages, or in a specific area of the country. The possibilities are endless.

The National Parks of the UK will look after the archive for five years keeping it accessible to use long after Green Space Dark Skies ends in October 2022.

How can you take part?

You can tell your story through a photo, a few words, or a poem or you can record yourself talking about your memorable or meaningful experience.  You might like to take a photo of a painting or natural sculpture made by your child, inspired by their time in nature, or tell us what being in a green or blue (water) space means for you: does it make you feel connected to your past, your family, the future? How does it make you feel?  What is a favourite memory?

Tell us your stories

Click on the link below and tell us your story.  We will also ask you a few questions to help us understand what your experience means to you.  Some of them might look a bit unusual, but we hope that you will find them interesting.

You can share as many stories as you like, but you will have to enter each one separately.

Salford Rediscovered will include music, films, tours, performances and a joy-filled celebration of the Rediscovering Salford exhibitions and commissions, including a one-time-only appearance of Madam Mort, as created by drag artist Cheddar Gorgeous.

Please register for your free Salford Rediscovered –Join the Party! ticket.