The Cass 2017-18 cross-school project with writer Rachel Lichtenstein
For 2017-18’s Cass cross-school project, Interior Design BA and Creative Writing and English Literature BA worked with the renowned artist and writer Rachel Lichtenstein and Sandy’s Row Synagogue, a 160-year-old synagogue in Spitalfields.
BA Interior Design students provided proposals for a new cultural and heritage centre in the currently unused basement space. Their brief was to provide “a unique flexible space through which rich oral histories can be told to impart cultural significance to the wider community”. Student proposals were exhibited at the synagogue for European Day of Jewish Culture in November 2018.
BA Creative Writing and English Literature students studied Rachel Lichtenstein's Spitalfields writing and worked with her to understand the history of the synagogue and its community. As part of their work-related learning module, the students were trained in digital and paper archive skills at the Bishopsgate Institute. They worked over several months transferring fragile and uncatalogued archival documents into digital and catalogued form. The records are now accessible at both Bishopsgate Institute and the National Library of Israel.
