Co-creating new pasts and new futures: the Roman ‘Diff Fusion Project

Hello, I’m Dave Wyatt and I have a slightly unusual role because I am a Reader in Civic Mission and Community Action as well as a medieval historian. My research explores the cultural and social significance of slavery in the societies of medieval Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia. But in the other part of my job, I lead on civic mission and community engagement for the  School of History, Archaeology and Religion here at Cardiff. As such, I’m involved in many exciting projects, working with an extensive range of external partners to take our research about the past out into the world to open up accessible routes into higher education. These projects include SHARE with Schools Project, a student-led educational outreach initiative, the Exploring the Past Pathway, a route that progresses adult learners onto degrees, and CAER Heritage Project (CAER), which works with the communities of Caerau and Ely in the west of Cardiff to explore their rich heritage.

In this post, I talk about Roman ‘Diff Fusion, a recent CAER initiative working with young people that took place over the autumn of 2022. But before doing this, I think it is important to provide a bit more context on CAER which has been a huge part of my life!

Caerau and Ely face a range of significant social and economic challenges and also the kind of unfairly attributed stereotypes often associated with communities facing such challenges. Yet there is a story about these communities that is not frequently told: these are communities of immense warmth, talent, resilience, and solidarity. There is also a hidden and vibrant history that reflects this. CAER celebrates this history and these communities. The long-running CAER project involves local residents, community partners and groups, local schools, artists, heritage professionals and many thousands of volunteers in discovering the 6,000-year-old heritage of their community through archaeological excavations, historical co-research projects, co-curation and co-creativity. You can find out more about CAER, our partnerships, and approaches here.

The Roman ‘Diff Fusion Project is a great example of the community co-creation and widening participation strategies that underpin CAER. Roman ‘Diff is a partnership between three big university civic mission projects: CAER Heritage, Community Gateway and Creative Cardiff. These brought together fifteen year 8 students from Fitzalan High School with fifteen year 8 students from Cardiff West Community High. These young people worked alongside a team of youth workers, professional artists, and academics from across our School to co-research the ancient and modern past of West Cardiff. Over eleven weeks, both sets of students were given day release every Wednesday to work with the project team. Together they explored a range of Cardiff’s historical eras and considered multiple historical themes: identity, religion, migration, conflict, art, and material culture.

Yet, at the heart of this historically themed project were some simple objectives that were very much about the present: to build understanding and friendship between young people from two urban communities in the southern arc of Cardiff where there have traditionally been some tensions. These are also communities from which not all young people consider entering higher education to be an option for them. Breaking down barriers to educational progression was a key focus too of the Roman ‘Diff Fusion Project. We also wanted to foster stronger partnerships between youth workers and creatives in Caerau and Ely and Grangetown/Riverside – using heritage discovery and historically inspired art and creativity as the catalyst.

So just how did we try to do this?

In the first week, the newly formed Roman ‘Diff team explored the incredible Iron Age and medieval heritage at Caerau Hillfort with myself at our CAER Heritage Centre. We also got slightly lost in Caerau Woods on the hillfort!

The following week we were joined by Laurence Totelin, an historian of ancient medicine and science at Cardiff. Together we examined identity and appearance in the Roman world, creating Roman make-up, painting Roman funerary portraits, and discovering the remains of a Roman villa on our collective doorsteps in Trelai Recreation Field.

In week 3 we took a trip to Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum of Wales in the heart of Cardiff, treasure hunting through the galleries to see how art has been influenced by the past and especially antiquity. We also got to go behind the scenes into the archives. Here archaeologist David Roberts and heritage professional Evan Chapman showed us the finds from Ely’s Roman Villa, which we’d visited the previous week.

In the fourth week, we moved our base of operations to Grangetown and the fabulous Grange Pavilion. Here we worked with the digital historian Esther Wright to ideas jam, storyboard, and design amazing heritage video games themed on what we’d discovered so far about Cardiff’s past.

In week 5 we returned to the Grange Pavilion where we learned about the historical importance of oral testimony and the hidden histories of migrant communities with a visit to the South Wales Islamic centre. This provided a great opportunity to discover the long history of the Muslim communities of Cardiff with Islam UK researcher Abdul Azim Ahmed.

In another field trip, we visited our own school in Cardiff University. The Roman ‘Diff young people met with our students from the SHARE with Schools project and asked them questions about what it’s like studying for a degree, then they got a taster of university life including a tour of the archaeology conservation labs.

Visiting Cardiff University including the archaeological conservation labs.

Inspired by all of these historical and archaeological adventures and discoveries the young people returned to the CAER Centre for 3 weeks consecutive weeks to work with artists Geriant Ross Evans and CAER community artist Nic Parsons to co-create a performance event and a temporary art installation. The installation showcased to the public at the CAER Centre as part of a new exhibition of artefacts discovered during recent community excavations.

You can discover more about this here: Developing Cardiff’s Future Artists and historians | Creative Cardiff

The young people also co-created a short film documenting (https://youtu.be/g8o02NaAvxw) their discoveries, creativity and friendship.

There were challenges along the way and lots to be learned from our project and the young people. However, we ultimately found that using historical discovery to build friendships and understanding can be incredibly successful and rewarding. Here are some thoughts from just two of those remarkable young people:

“I was happy to be part of the project and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working with pupils from Cardiff West. I really enjoyed our trip to Cardiff University and felt really lucky to be shown some of the historical artifacts that were there. I found that really interesting.” Patrick, from Fitzalan High School

“It’s really enjoyable and fun to learn about history especially when it’s right under your feet. I’ve made friends and it’s been lovely to experience these activities with young people from another school.” Tianah, from Cardiff West Community High School

As a final post-script, the friendships fostered during the project are ongoing. This was clearly evident when in the summer of 2023 we got the Roman Diff team back together to take part in our CAER Community Dig, It was such a pleasure to see them reunited, happy and having fun together – once again discovering new pasts and creating new futures.