Reframing rejections, following your passions and staying connected: TAP student Faye Larkins and recent PhD graduate Dr Emily-Rose Baker discuss their experience of student knowledge exchange

In June and July 2021, Faye Larkins and Dr Emily-Rose Baker worked together on 'Landscapes of Repair', a transnational knowledge exchange project and collaboration between the University of Sheffield and external partner Forum ZFD. Bringing together numerous artists, academics and cultural professionals, the work explored 'post-traumatic landscapes' in Kosovo through a two day symposium and online exhibition. Faye, who recently completed her BA in Spanish and Japanese Studies, joined the project as a TAP intern. Emily, who recently passed her PhD in Decolonial Cultures of Holocaust Memory in Central-Eastern Europe, was employed in the role of Research Associate. Here they talk about their experiences of student knowledge exchange (KE) in relation to Landscapes of Repair. 

A still from the Landscapes of Repair online exhibition

Faye Larkins

​​My journey to becoming a TAP student and receiving my internship came about due to two rejections. Before I heard about TAP, I had just applied for another internship but was turned down. Then, once I was part of the TAP programme, I was rejected from the specific internship I wanted. In hindsight, I’m grateful for both rejections because I ended up embarking on two journeys that were more suited for me. The reason I mention this is because part of my TAP experience has been learning to embrace possible new passions and interests and realizing the vast opportunities that are available to me as an Arts and Humanities Student. 

 

My internship involved working for the University of Sheffield Arts and Humanities Knowledge Exchange team on Landscapes of Repair with Dr Amanda Crawley Jackson, Dr Emily-Rose Baker and Natalie Rowett, alongside international organisation ForumZFD. From the start Amanda and Emily made me feel so welcome and rather than treating me as an intern or only someone there to learn, they invited me to get involved, speak up and take ownership for any work I carried out. 

 

One of the greatest lessons has been learning to value my own knowledge and the contributions that I can bring to the table. As an undergraduate, it is easy to be stuck in a mindset where you’re constantly trying to learn and in some ways that has prevented me from seeing what I have to offer. Having the opportunity to curate the online exhibition for Landscapes of Repair not only gave me an insight into my own abilities, but I started to open up to the idea of using my knowledge for things I wouldn’t have originally considered. Over the past year, I have been considering becoming a diplomat, and while my reasons for wanting to enter into this field remain true, I have realised that there are options outside of more traditional careers that can have a positive impact on international communities. 

Learning about the power of art and photography has opened me up to the idea that we need to look outside of the options usually pushed on us. My grandad wanted to be an artist and was even put forward by his teacher to go to an art college, but, coming from a working class background, he was pressured to give up his dream and ended up working on building sites. Unfortunately, the same pressure has been put on me to enter into a career that is well looked upon in society rather than following my own passions, and I’m sure without Landscapes of Repair I would be treading down the same path as my grandad. 

This October I will be starting my MA in International Relations, and whilst I’ll be entering a more political field of study, my background in Arts and Humanities will enrich my understanding of democratisation, human rights and transitional justice. I couldn’t have possibly imagined the great impact TAP would have on me and it was exactly the boost and experience I needed before taking on life as a graduate. I hope my own journey working on Landscapes of Repair hasn’t ended here and I’m excited to see what more I can learn from and bring to the project in the future.

 

A still from the Landscapes of Repair online exhibition

Emily-Rose Baker 

One of the most enjoyable aspects of working in Knowledge Exchange (KE) is the opportunity to collaborate with a diverse range of partners, from international organisations such as forumZFD, to students like Faye. Landscapes of Repair is the second KE project I have been involved with at Sheffield (the former being Invisible Wounds, 2020), and my experience of both has been shaped for the better by the sharing of ideas and work-related activities with a dedicated team. In this sense, KE has provided me with the collaborative environment that I have found academia to sometimes lack. 

Being a junior academic in the Arts & Humanities has its challenges, from government funding cuts to precarious employment terms. But completing an independent 3-4-year research project often results in isolation for PhD students, who can feel forced to forgo their mental wellbeing in order to finish their theses under extreme pressure - an experience the pandemic has only exacerbated. The world of KE offered me some respite from this during the completion of my PhD earlier this year; it guaranteed a wider audience of non-academics as well as researchers with whom to co-produce projects, and enabled me to use my research to worthwhile collaborative ends. My PhD thesis examined postcommunist Holocaust literature and film from East Central Europe through a decolonial lens, and included a chapter on the entanglement of Jewish memories of wartime suffering with Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) memories of genocide in the early-mid 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was able to apply my knowledge of memory cultures in the former Yugoslavia to the Kosovo region during the Landscapes of Repair project.

On a personal level, Faye’s enthusiasm for the Landscapes of Repair project during her internship created a fun, dynamic work environment, and provided someone to share the successes and stresses of participating in a high stakes KE project with. On a practical level, Faye’s involvement in the project directly facilitated the delivery of the exhibition, symposium and e-publication on time and to a high standard, granting insight into the wealth of skills and expertise students in the Arts & Humanities bring to such projects in the process.

Moreover, working with Faye demonstrated the importance of including student perspectives within the KE activities and strategies of the University. Students harness a significant part of the knowledge universities have to offer external stakeholders, and so it is important that they play a central role in the way institutions go about KE. Faye and I both participated in the Faculty KE and Impact Committee meeting during the Landscapes of Repair project, offering our perspectives on how to engage students and embed their knowledge within KE. This was a good exercise in including students in the development of KE methods at Faculty level - one I hope will continue. 

Overall, it was a pleasure to have Faye’s input on Landscapes of Repair, and I’m looking forward to working with her again in future!

A still from the Landscapes of Repair online exhibition