Our Life Stories

Highlighting two years of peer-to-peer research, ‘Our Life Stories’ was a touring exhibition by United Response which documented the evolution of England's disability landscape over the last fifty years told by people in their own voices. These oral histories will go on to be preserved in the British Library’s accessible archive. For a community whose narrative has historically been shaped by others, we are grateful to have helped platform their unfiltered voices.

Architect and educator Freya Spencer-Wood led the design of the exhibition system which operates as a self-contained infrastructure, allowing it to adapt comfortably to various venues, spaces, and audiences. Removable shelves form an integrated service channel that houses built-in, battery powered audio stations and lighting, elevating each artwork with the care of a permanent gallery setting.

Our role was to develop Freya’s design into a technical design for manufacture which we then built inhouse. The focus was to develop the system into something that could easily be easily assembled and disassembled before taking the show on the road, installing and deinstalling across four venues York Guildhall, Nottingham Contemporary, Cornwall Museum and the Langdon Down Centre.