The Ragged University

Manchester Ragged invites you to an evening of talks and music on 5th July, doors open 7pm, starting at 7.30pm at The Castle Hotel featuring:

‘The Western Capercaillie and Cornflower Ambassadors Speak Out’ - by Nick Dixon and Annie Harrison

We are two of the 100 selected ambassadors from the unique ExtInked partnership project. We’ll speak about our work, including our motivation for taking on the challenge, the experience of the tattooing and subsequent endeavours on behalf of the endangered species we represent: the capercaillie and the cornflower.

ExtInked is an art and ecology project in which one hundred original drawings of endangered British species were tattooed onto one hundred volunteers. The result of the unique three day performance was an army of ‘ambassadors’ for threatened and rare birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, plants and fungi from around the UK. The project began in November 2009 and was a collaboration with tattooists Ink Vs Steel and photographers Anatomy Projects. It was supported by Arts Council England and MIRIAD. ExtInked was identified as one of the RSA’s arts and ecology project highlights of 2009

‘What are the Ragged Schools – where peer led learning came from’ - by Alex Dunedin
The Ragged Schools movement was a Victorian movement which saw people in all communities banding together to provide free education. From the Crippled Cobbler in Portsmouth to Angel Meadow in Manchester to the Reverend Thomas Guthrie in Edinburgh to Sheriff Watson in Aberdeen; across the land everyone got together to build each other’s knowledge. A major development in this was Andrew Bell’s Madras peer led teaching method, which was inspired by watching local children teaching each other by drawing in the sand. He took this inspiration and generated a system of education which has informed aspects of the university system today.
I am keen to tell people about this history which transformed our social landscape, also update it through the Ragged project today. By meeting in social spaces, peer led community education has more opportunity than ever to make a difference in people’s lives. Here I will be sharing some of the histories which provided such remarkable answers to obvious problems and asking the question – ‘Can we do this again ?’

Music by
Sukhdeep Krishan
Playing songs from his debut album ‘Kings’
www.iamsukh.com
Twitter: @sukhsmusic
soundcloud.com/sukhsmusic

Everyone is welcome to come along to this free, open, informal education project so bring along your friends. This is all about relaxing, putting your feet up and finding out about what people are investing their lives in.