Team

Cornish: UK

Dr. Laura Hodsdon – Project Leader and UK Principal Investigator

Dr Laura Hodsdon is Senior Research Fellow at Falmouth University, and Project Leader and UK Principal Investigator of the Re:voice project. Her research focuses on heritage and landscape, with a particular interest in social justice. Interests include discourses of/in sites and landscapes and how they relate to power, and linking these to practice and policy for access and inclusion; missing or hidden heritage stories; and how different people relate to and engage with heritage. Before working at Falmouth, she was Policy Advisor in the Equality and Diversity Unit at the University of Oxford.

“Common to all my research and policy roles has been an interest in how people see themselves and others, what the impact of those narratives might be on equality and social justice, and what to do about it. With the Re:voice project, I want to look at intangible heritage in a holistic context, thinking about how different groups in society interact within and around cultural heritage, and how to leverage positive aspects of those interactions to ensure heritage practices remain vital while empowering and respecting marginalised cultures.”

Denzil Monk – Lead, Archives

Denzil is an academic at Falmouth University, teaching MA Film & Television, engaged in research and innovation as Archive Research Strand Lead of Re-voicing Cultural Landscapes, Project Lead for A Case for Cornish Public Service Media and in Knowledge Exchange at the Sound/Image Cinema Lab. Denzil is the founder and CEO of West Cornwall based ecosophical film company Bosena, where he is developing a slate of features with backing from Film4, the BFI, Sound/Image Cinema Lab and Screen Cornwall including BAFTA winning writer/director Mark Jenkin’s ENYS MEN.

“Performances of minoritised cultural expression have and continue to be captured in image and sound, often from an outsider perspective. I’m interested in how such artefacts are contextualised, assigned value, and what commons tools of reciprocity could allow them to be properly accessible to their originating communities.”

Dr. Lucy Frears – Lead, Primary Data Collection

Lucy Frears is a researcher, sound theory lecturer (in the School of Film & Television at Falmouth University, UK) and makes sound work. Her practice-based PhD research focussed on locative media. Oral histories, stories and image were triggered by a walking participant and GPS. This embodied immersive ‘Geo Poetic System’ merged physical reality with digital content to connect participants to the landscape and community.
Interviews, including oral histories will also be gathered by Re:Voice Kernow at three exciting local traditions/ festivals. Lucy will make a sound work that mixes binaural live event sound with traces from interviews from one of the festivals.

Agniezska Blonska – Lead, Theatre Performance

Agnieszka Blonska is a theatre director and performer based in the UK since 2003. For the last 19 years she has worked in Britain and internationally as an independent artist and in collaboration with theatre companies and theatres such as Wildworks, Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw, Theatre Institute in Warsaw, National Theatre Studio, Soho Theatre, Theatre Bristol, Hall For Cornwall, Projekt Europa and others.
Agnieszka works as a senior lecturer in Acting and Theatre & Performance at Falmouth University, and is an associate artist at Hall For Cornwall. In 2008 Agnieszka was nominated to the Arts Foundation Award for Young Theatre Directors.

I am particularly interest in subjects of identity, social change and personal story in relation to a society. In my work I use a variety of forms including participatory and performative theatre exploring the boundaries of traditional understanding of drama and play. I apply devising methods and improvisation, often examining deconstruction and non-linear approach to a performance.

Flis Tattersall – Research Assistant, Archives

Flis Tattersall is an Illustrator and Writer, and Research Assistant for the Re:voice project. Her creative practice responds to historical museum and archival stories and explores how they can be interpreted through different modes of storytelling. Flis is specifically researching audio visual archival collections in relation to three Cornish festivals within the Re:voice project. ‘I’m fascinated by how the presence, (and absence) of archival material contributes to the construction of cultural identity. I’m really excited about making archival collections more accessible to the communities that they represent through our research and working with such a fantastic team.’

Paul Sewry – Project Support Officer

Barbara Santi – Project Consultant

Barbara Santi is an award-winning creative documentary filmmaker/producer based in west Cornwall and co-director of awen productions. Barbara has over 20-years experience of using film and digital media for positive social change. At the heart of Barbara’s work is to raise under-represented peoples voices through film using collaborative and participatory methods.

“My film practice has evolved to push the boundaries of collaboration, authorship and deep mapping. I am passionate about archive in particular archive film and photography. I have worked with the community of Padstow since 2010 and Golowan since 1999, reinterpreting their archive and making documentaries with them about their heritage. My interest in collaborative film, creative storytelling, intangible cultural heritage and ideas around place, identity and culture has further developed into a practice-based PhD.”

Frisian: The Netherlands

Prof. Dr. Joana Da Silveira Duarte – The Netherlands Principal Investigator

Joana Duarte is an associate professor at the department for minorities and multilingualism of the Univeristy of Groningen, The Netherlands. She is also a professor for multilingualism and literacy at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences and a professor by special appoint at the University of Amsterdam. Her research areas focus on diversity and minorities in education, teacher professionalisation, educational equity and multilingual language acquisition.

Dr. Antine Zijlstra – Researcher and Project Leader Field Research

Antine Zijlstra is a researcher and the field research project leader for Re-voicing cultural landscapes – narratives, perspectives, and performances of marginalised intangible cultural heritage (Re:voice) (JPICH, Horizon 2020) (University of Groningen). She has a PhD in the field of theatre studies and arts marketing from the University of Groningen (Netherlands), with her thesis called Serious happiness, towards a model for the analysis of value hierarchies in theatre use.

Zijlstra focuses on qualitative research on the values of theatre attendance and has worked on research commissioned by various arts organisations and governments. She taught arts marketing and theatre studies in the Department for Arts, Culture, and Media at the Institute of Humanities (University of Groningen). She also works as a teacher and researcher at the Department of Art in Education at the NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden (Netherlands). Her latest research project was Dialogic spaces, in which interactive social media communication strategies were developed for increasing online discussions about artistic events. Currently, she is also preparing research projects on ‘Arts for health care and wellbeing’ and ‘Arts and citizenship education’.

Dr. Sjoerd-Jeroen Moenandar – Research Lead

Sjoerd-Jeroen is a lecturer and researcher at the Minorities & Multilingualism programme at the University of Groningen. He is a narratologist – a scholar of how stories are structured and how they function – and has a special interest in how storytelling is used to create individual and collective identities.

“Throughout my academic career, I have been fascinated by border thinking – the way humans conceive of themselves in opposition to something or someone else – as manifested in the stories that we tell to ourselves and others. It is fascinating to see this happening in the Frisian theatre events we study for the Re:voice project and I cannot wait to share our team’s findings with fellow academics, theatre makers and the broader public!”

Berber Aardema – Junior Researcher

Berber Aardema is a researcher in training at the faculty of Minorities and Multilingualism at the University of Groningen. They completed their Masters degree in English Writing, Editing and Mediating and have a strong interest in theatre and language.

“The ways we connect to each other and have conceived of ways to convey complex stories, thoughts, and emotions to each other has always been interesting to me. Exploring this expression in regards to minority identity and how this is expressed is endlessly fascinating and I am excited to keep learning more about this field during this project.”

Livonian: Latvia and Estonia

Dr. phil. Valts Ernštreits – Latvia Principal Investigator

Dr. phil. Valts Ernštreits (1974) is the director of the University of Latvia Livonian institute and culture policy advisor to the minister of culture of the Republic of Latvia. For decades he has been involved in revitalization efforts of the Latvia’s indigenous language and one of the most endangered languages in the world – Livonian. Being Livonian himself he has been involved in numerous activities of safeguarding and developing Livonian cultural life and widening the possibilities of the use of Livonian. He has also advocated Livonian heritage and language in state and municipal level and promoting Livonian heritage in educational institutions, general public and Livonian community. Valts Ernštreits’ research interests include the building of digital resources and developing approaches for the research, safeguarding, and providing accessibility to the Livonian language and culture sources, as well as lexicography, language standardization and intangible heritage.

Dr. Kadri Koreinik – Estonia Principal Investigator

Kadri Koreinik is Associate Professor of Language Sociology at the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics at the University of Tartu. With a background and training in social sciences, she is interested in all kinds of extralinguistic factors (ideologies, policies, migration) which have impacts on (socio)linguistic and social change.

“More than two decades ago I found myself surrounded by linguists, to whom I owe a lot for sharing their nuanced understanding of language (with me). Even before that, I had started to wonder why people avoid some language practices – certain accents and language varieties, ‘foreignisms’ and archaisms, vernacular and mixed speech. After observing energetic language activism in southeastern Estonia, the objectives of Re:voice – to explore the manifestations of intangible cultural heritage in a region (i.e. Salaca Livonian areas) where language shift has taken place centuries ago – seems quite a challenge.

Dr. art. Ieva Vītola – Senior Guest Researcher

Ieva Vītola is a researcher at the Latvian Academy of Culture and a guest researcher at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute. Her academic interests include intangible heritage, archaeology and folklore, identity of cultural landscapes. She has considerable experience in field research both in Latvia and in diaspora communities. As an expert she has participated in the evaluation of cultural projects, provided advice on safeguarding and developing of Latvia ‘s intangible cultural heritage values, cooperated with non-governmental sector and local governments in conducting various cultural and historical research. Results of her research were integrated into various educational activities and events – publications and lectures, seminars and exhibitions.

Mg.sc.soc. Lolita Ozoliņa – Guest Researcher

Lolita Ozolina is a PhD student and lecturer at the Latvian Academy of Culture and a guest researcher at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute. Her academic interests are related the sustainability issues of the place branding and its multilateral integration of the community-based and land-based sense of place – how the manifestations of multifaceted practices of the intangible cultural heritage and its contemporary forms provide sustainable and authentic narratives of the self-identification within the cultural landscape?

“The concept of place brand identity in the majority of cases of place brands in Latvia is demonstrated by visual and verbal decorativeness and a lack of sustainable narration. The challenging issue is identifying the necessary place-identity attributes and engaging residents in the process of co-creating their place’s brand, in order to develop an identity that is credible, competitive and sustainable in the minds of the stakeholders it serves.”

Prof. Dr. Karl Pajusalu – Senior Researcher/Expert

Karl Pajusalu is a Professor of Estonian Language History and Dialects at the University of Tartu. He is also a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on language variation and historical sociolinguistics. His scholarly contribution to Southern Finnic studies, including research on South Estonian and Salaca Livonian languages, is extensive. He has also been active in the revitalisation of minoritized languages by documenting speech and compiling dictionaries and grammars. Beyond academic interests, but also closely connected to revitalisation, he has published solely and co-authored poetry collections such as “Trillum” (2018:10):

“The appearance of the most productive modern Livonian poet Ķempi Kārl (i.e., Karl Pajusalu) was one of the greatest surprises in recent times on the Livonian literary scene. His first poetry collection, Salats joug kolm aģa (The three shores of the Salaca, 2013; also containing translations of each poem in Latvian and Estonian) became the first book to be published in the Salaca Livonian language in the entire history of the Livonian people”.

 

Anni Leena Kolk – Project Assistant

Anni Leena Kolk is a master student of ethnology at the University of Tartu, who has comparatively studied the fiction of Estonian and Latvian contemporary authors. She is interested in representations of collective memory and narratives, which represent rupture from the Soviet regime. She has also dabbled in translating, most recently a Latvian play called “Puika, kurš redzēja tumsā” (The boy who saw in the dark) which was brought to the stage at Tallinn City Theatre.

“I have always found it fascinating how storytellers find different ways to make their voices heard. This love for stories led me to study literature and I think it also drew me to this project – the stories that can be heard while exploring intangible cultural heritage are truly captivating.”