Churnjeet Mahn (University of Strathclyde) and Gurmeet Rai (Cultural Resource Conservation Initiative, India) were at the University of Easy Anglia on the 6th of June 2017 to talk about Creative Interruptions: Grassroots Culture, State Structures and Disconnection as a Space for ‘Radical Openness’.

This AHRC-funded day symposium was focused specifically on collaborative research, including co-production, across the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF), and brought together collaborative researchers and partners from the UK and internationally to discuss practice and potential in collab- oration and development. The event took place a day prior to the Mobilising Global Voices International Summit, held at the British Library on 07 June. At the British Library summit, Churnjeet and Gurmeet and Sarita Malik (PI) contributed to a session titled, ‘Mobilising Community Voices’, discussing the international basis of the Creative Interruptions project and the arts and humanities-led approaches used in co-production.

The University of East Anglia symposium gave international guests, engaged in various research projects, time and further opportunity to discuss their activities and experiences of GCRF and collaboration. Further, it addressed the great deal of interest from arts and humanities within and outside Connected Communities in collaborative research in both international and development contexts.

Gurmeet and Churnjeet are leading the strand of the Creative Interruptions project which examines grassroots approaches to understanding heritage in Amritsar, Punjab alongside how we can democratise access to heritage and its management through creative interventions.