By Maria Bregman, writer and art critic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Bregman. Her critical work and essays are featured in major global publications such as Elle, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, alongside influential arts-focused outlets like OurCulture Mag, Arts and Culture UK (ArtCulture.UK) and other.
The finale of Threads of Connection at Manchester Museum. The final chapter of Threads of Connection, at Manchester Museum, was defined by a very specific nature of silence exhibited in museums – a type of silence that contains much information, earning it an extreme feeling of memory. However, on December 13th, this silence left its original state; it became animated through the use of visual projections, and many audio and visual performances that were so varied in their form, including student presentations, and haunting spoken word performances. It was not a typical student exhibition or report, but rather an experience where the voices from the past were connecting with the present and future in a way that was unique to the Threads of Connection project.
It All Began with a Volunteer
The genesis of this story is the fact that it is not defined by a “grand institutional framework.” No significant producer made a formal launch. Instead, the project started with a Munich museum volunteer and a notion.
The project that became Threads of Connection originated as an assignment on the Boost Your Volunteer Opportunities training programme provided by Manchester Adult Education. It emerged as a concept from a visual artist, Katerina Karp, while serving as a volunteer at the Manchester Museum. Karp’s initial goal was to submit this project as an examination assignment, but this project exceeded her expectations of originality and relevance.
“I was trying to demonstrate in my volunteer training that heritage isn’t something that is fixed; it is a source of inspiration, creativity, conversation, and connections,” elaborated Karp.
From this very quiet and obscure origin on the museum’s map, the project has blossomed into a partnership between Manchester Museum (part of Manchester University), Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Digital Arts (SODA), and the wider creative community in Manchester. It is important to recognise that the project was not established from a top-down approach, but rather it created an opportunity for the museum to be part of a grassroots initiative.
Heritage + Education + Future Media
The project was based on five artifacts from the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery. These artifacts included dragon robes from the Qing Dynasty, shoes for bound feet, and ceremonial scrolls (Emperor Kangxi’s Birthday Scroll). They represented the materials that showed both power and the daily lives of people in that era. What was important about “Threads of Connection” was not so much how to explain the objects, but rather the opportunity to allow the participants to conceptualize these objects differently from the traditional ways we view artifacts. This was the main idea of Katerina Karp as a curator as well.
As students at SODA began this project, they formed small interdisciplinary groups to replicate the workflow of creative industry professionals, managed by Debbie Bandara, lecture at SODA. The methodology was established as research followed by media creation, starting with the extraction of insight, then creating textual content and image-based media.
Heritage was not merely an object of analysis. Rather, it acted as an enabler to create animation, virtual reality (VR), 3D printing, virtual reality environments using Unreal Engine, soundscapes, and digital storytelling.
“This is an opportunity for our students to engage in a professional cultural collaboration, where their creative input has a direct influence on how audiences interact with artifacts from museums,” says Debbie Bandara, a lecturer at SODA, producer and artist.
Manchester Affords Ecosystem Opportunity
Only in Manchester could this story unfold.
It was through training at a volunteer course that Katerina met Hazel Ng (producer of the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery), and during that time the conversation went from learning about the collection to what types of possibilities the collection presents.
It was also at the PUSH2025 Festival where Debbie Bandara met Katerina, and together they quickly realised students require real-life cultural projects as early as possible.
According to Hazel Ng, “The museum isn’t only about showcasing items that are part of history; it is about sharing the stories of the people documented through the items and celebrating their experiences.” The goal of the Lee Kai Hung Chinese Culture Gallery is to create empathy among cultures through interaction and education through engagement and authentic dialogue.
The Threads of Connection project aimed to create meaningful engagement in this way.
A Showcase of Creative Expression
December 13 2025, the final showcase, was a tapestry of creative expressions, represented by both individual projects and a collaborative effort.
CO LABS Project created a holographic representation of a Qing Dynasty dragon robe that was projected through a “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion. Accompanied by sound and narration, the hologram was designed to float rather than hang in space. The floating effect was intended to be a comment on the ephemeral nature of power and also serves as a reminder of how the symbols of power – such as the dragon robe – can be perceived as merely illusionary.
The projected images presented in DYNASTY IN MOTION were a contemporary take on the way that the birthday celebrations of Emperor Kangxi were depicted. Using large-scale projection techniques and animation via the UNREAL ENGINE, this project combined two differing narratives to explain a single historical event, the Emperor’s birthday. The project combined ceremonial context with the day-to-day experiences of ordinary people.
The 3D printed sculpture created by MATT (Dragontown) featuring a dragon robe was represented as an animated sequence illustrating the historical significance of Hong Kong. In its transformation from an object of imperial rule to one of the people, the representation served to reinforce the view of the dragon as a cultural artifact rather than an object of royal power. A QR code incorporated with the physical sculpture connected the object to its digital narrative, serving as a timely and exact expression of the term “digitally-authenticated cultural heritage”.
Studio 5‘s Lotus Dream was a powerful and emotional experience. Traditional shoes for bound feet were redesigned as modern 3D printed objects. Each shoe contains a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip. When scanned, it provides access to an animated video of a woman dancing, representing the lost hope and dream of freedom for the women who wore these shoes. The message of Lotus Dream will continue to resonate with the audience long after experiencing it.
Loom Immersive’s virtual reality (VR) installation draws the audience into a representation of Duan Fang’s inner world. One aspect of this is how the way the governor’s robe represents Duan Fang’s thoughts, feelings, personal and political memories reflected in the robe. Through 2D and 3D animations, the original birthday scroll of Emperor Kangxi is recreated with sound effects to provide the viewer with an interactive, multi-sensory experience of a historical object that has been recreated for today.
The students in another project examined the historical links between early Chinese decorative art (dragons) and some of the decoration found in contemporary Manchester through the colours and rhythms of the designs. This illustrates a continuing connection between Chinese heritage and the current decorative arts of the industrial north of England.
Heritage Alive
The Threads of Connection project demonstrated a fundamental yet radical truth: Heritage can only be alive as long as we are willing to engage and dialogue with it. As such, there were no right or wrong interpretations of this project; rather, it required careful consideration when interpreting or responding to the information presented.
The success of the project was due not only to the quality of the final product but also the degree of involvement by all those who participated, as well as the resultant growth of both the students and the development of a model for working together among museums, the educational system, and emerging technologies.
Most importantly, the motivation behind the project did not start with a “mission statement” created by an institution; instead, it started from the personal vision of a volunteer who saw not just a display case but rather a woven thread that needed to be drawn out.
From there, the fabric began to unfold on its own.
