Get involved in creating Custom House heritage for future generations in our forthcoming oral history project ‘Custom House, Our House’

Get involved in creating Custom House heritage for future generations in our forthcoming oral history project ‘Custom House, Our House’, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Thanks to National Lottery players, Custom House Bookshop, in collaboration with Royal College of Art, are partnering with Newham Heritage Service, Newham Libraries and Rosetta Arts for a community oral history project in Custom House (September 2024-2025). The oral history project will record intergenerational voices on the impact of community-led regeneration in Custom House.

Denise Evans-Barr (co-founder of Custom House Bookshop) and Jessie Brennan (artist and Tutor at Royal College of Art) are recruiting volunteers to train as oral history interviewers and record Custom House oral histories relating to urban change. We are also inviting expressions of interest from participants willing to share their testimony as an interviewee, and there are other ways to get involved in the project too.

Up to 12 volunteers will receive oral history training (with honorarium at London Living Wage, plus expenses) to record an oral history interview from a community member who has lived experience of Custom House regeneration or expertise in community-led regeneration. We are particularly interested to hear from people who identify as working class, Black and Global Majority individuals, young people (aged 18–30) and elders (aged 50+) representative of Newham’s diverse communities and heritage. Whether you are interested in becoming an interviewer by recording another person’s story or becoming an interviewee by sharing your experience of Custom House, we want to hear from you!

There is also a paid commission and mentor opportunity for a Newham-based young photographer.

Project outputs – oral histories and photographs – will be shared publicly across three formats in summer 2025:

• a photography exhibition at The Humble Gallery (Rosetta Arts);
• printed and digital publications;
• a full-project touring exhibition across Newham Libraries.

Come to our project launch on Saturday 15 June 2024, 11am–1pm, to find out more!

Part of Newham Heritage Month