STREET Cosmos

County Durham has a very long lineage in space innovation: from Bede and Thomas Wright, all the way up to today’s growing satellite industry at NET Park and pioneering research at Durham University’s Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics.

STREET COSMOS uses creativity and fun to get communities to explore the big mysteries of our universe alongside leading experts and discover together where we humans fit in it all…

The Partners

Durham University, Blackhall Community Centre, No More Nowt (Peterlee), Gaunless Gateway (Bishop Auckland) and TCR Hub (Barnard Castle).

Funding

Phase 1 of Street Cosmos is being funded by UKRI and the Museum’s Association, as part of their Mindsets + Missions programme.

Mindsets + Missions is a pilot learning and grants programme designed to support museums, science centres and vibrant individuals from the sectors to realise new and creative approaches to serving their communities through inclusive research-related projects.

UKRI/Museum’s Association funding supported the launch of Street Museum, and we are very grateful to them once again for funding the first 12 months of Street Cosmos.

Events Constellation

From autumn 2023 to summer 2024, Street Cosmos – working with its community collaborators – will produce a whole range of activities across Blackhall, Bishop Auckland, Barnard Castle and beyond. Using culture and arts to explore the big themes and questions about the universe, and discover what most excites the communities in each place. We will then partner community representatives with experts from Durham University to co-design lively exhibitions in each of the three places based on those themes.

Phase 1 will culminate in one big free event that brings together the exhibitions from the three places, that will be open to the public and connect the people involved in the space collaborations!

Blackhall Space Day

On 17 August 2023, Street Cosmos was launched at Blackhall Community Centre. As Blackhall was a founding partner of Street Museum, it will act as “Mission Control” for Street Cosmos, and a test bed for the programme.

Blackhall Space Day was a free event, that welcomed over 70 local children and their parents / carers to have fun with space, meet experts from Durham University, join in cosmos-themed art workshops, stargaze in an inflatable planetarium, and ask an alien about life on their planet!

Origins

The idea was originated by Alison Paterson, the manager of Blackhall Community Centre.

Whilst at a Street Museum wrap party, she got chatting to Professor Martin Ward (astrophysicist at Durham University) and expressed a desire that the next iteration of the project should be about space, as it would go down very well with the people of Blackhall village.

Street Cosmos will be larger in scale to Street Museum and take place simultaneously across multiple ‘left behind’ communities in County Durham – with Blackhall serving as ‘Mission Control’. It will also involve a larger number of academics and researchers, plus additional partners, national and international space organisations. Though it will not lose it’s personable, accessible and responsive core, and its feet will be kept firmly on the ground.