Lisa Rea Currie

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CIP Biography:

Lisa Rea Currie is a heritage practitioner who has been working at the intersection of community and heritage for the best part of two decades. She is passionate about how engaging with heritage can change lives for the better and has used heritage as tool for community engagement in youth work, community development and urban regeneration settings.  Lisa specialises in participatory and collaborative practices which help communities to discover and develop the skills to preserve, nurture and share their histories. She has found that this approach builds connection between participants, their communities and their places. She is looking forward to bringing these skills to the BeHere project and exploring together how community creativity inspired by the heritage at Mount Stewart can help to create a shared sense of belonging and place.

Project Summary:

‘Belonging, Heritage and Ecology in Ards and North Down: Community Co-Creation with Mount Stewart ‘ (BeHere) is a community-led project about how heritage contributes to a sense of belonging. Members of the local community around Mount Stewart are undertaking Participatory Action Research (PAR) to explore how the globally connected cultural and ecological heritage at Mount Stewart can contribute to a positive sense of place and belonging in Ards and North Down. The community are also producing a creative output exploring heritage and belonging which will be shared in a public exhibition. Lisa Rea Currie is the Community Innovation Practitioner on BeHere, with Emma Reisz (Queen’s University Belfast) and Jenny Ferguson (National Trust) providing project leadership. BeHere brings together Queen’s University Belfast, the National Trust, ArtsEkta, Kilcooley Women’s Centre and the Link in Newtownards. It is linked to the Historic Houses, Global Crossroads (HHGC) research project which is investigating the global connections of Mount Stewart.