#4 RISE UP Consortium Meeting: Redruth, Cornwall / March 2025
From March 1 to March 3, 2025, the RISE UP Consortium met up in Redruth, Cornwall for its fourth Consortium Meeting, which was combined with the first stop of the project’s Travelling Exhibition. During their visit, consortium members also engaged in cultural activities surrounding St. Piran’s Day and met with local stakeholders to learn more about the Cornish language, community and culture.
Day 1 (01.03.)
The meeting was kicked off on 01.03. in Redruth with a visit to the local St. Piran’s festival, which the RISE UP Travelling Exhibition was part of. Hosted in Redruth’s Library, the exhibition was visited by lots of people attending the festivities, who showed great interest in the project, the artworks, and the communities – and, especially, the fact that the exhibition was done completely in Cornish. One highlight was a reading by Lianne Wilson – the artist representing the Cornish community in the exhibition – who shared some of her bilingual (Cornish & English) poetry with the visitors. While some consortium members stayed at the exhibition throughout the afternoon, others attended a Cornish folk music session.
Day 2 (02.03.)
The second day of our trip started with an internal meeting, in which we updated each other on the progress of our work packages, and any challenges or open discussion points were clarified. In the afternoon, we participated in the St. Piran’s Parade, where we got to emerge ourselves in Cornish culture and were able to network with lots of Cornish speakers and activists, as well as interview some of them for our social media channels. The day was concluded with a social dinner for our consortium.
Day 3 (03.03.)
The third and last day of the meeting took place in Truro, where we spent the morning talking to Jowdy Davey and Mark Trevethan from the Cornish Language Office, who shared insights into the status of the language, community initiatives, requirements, their cultural strategy, and more. In the afternoon, we concluded our consortium meeting with internal discussions at the facilities of the Cornwall Council, where we talked about topics such as language vitality scales, exploitation of the project’s results, and the upcoming RISE UP Language Policy Roundtable.
All in all, our meeting in Cornwall was a great success, enabling us to strengthen our collaboration both within our consortium, as well as with the Cornish community. Thanks to all partners, organisers and people we met for such a productive meeting!
Author: Violeta Heinze
Photos: Marie-Therese Sauer
Links
St Piran’s Festival Redruth: https://discoverredruth.co.uk/st-pirans-festival/
Cornish Language Office: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/parks-leisure-and-culture/the-cornish-language/cornish-language-programme/cornish-language-office/
Redruth Library: https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/libraries-museums-and-archives/libraries/your-local-library/redruth-library-and-information-service/
RISE UP Travelling Exhibition: https://www.riseupproject.eu/events/what-travelling-exhibition/
Keywords
Cornwall, Kernow, Kernewek, Cornish, Language, Minority, St. Piran’s Day
