You may have seen in our recent newsletter that we made a callout for people managing land to take out your mobile phones and send us short video clips of yourselves and your projects at work, showing us what has changed since the start of the pandemic.

At Shared Assets we’re very aware that this period is exposing the flaws in the current system, and that the seeds of the new system are out there, – ones that will usher us towards a more equitable, socially just and interconnected land system, and we want to help reveal and document them.

We are already seeing how pandemic is changing the context for the people we’re working with. Practitioners of Common Good Land Use, land authorities, funders, and people across the sector are responding to weaknesses and failures in the current system, and adapting and emerging with new practices.

We are asking you to help us generate a suite of short films that can be used to understand what changes people are having to make and amplify the stories of resilience and resourcefulness that we are seeing being shared amongst our networks.

This will enable us to:

• document how common good land users have responded to this moment in history
• learn from stories of challenges and successes, and
• further understand the strengths and weaknesses of the current land system that have been exposed by the current crisis with the intention for sharing that learning.

You don’t need to worry about editing any films you take – we can do that! And there is some clear guidance below on how to take good, short video clips that we can use.

Alongside your short videos, we would also love to see images included to add to this repository with the intent of raising awareness for common good land use. Below are some guidelines for providing us with photos:

1. Take photo with Title/Description
2. Who should it be credited to?
3. Any restrictions on use?

We are interested in a broad range of content for your videos. You could tell us your organisation’s understanding about what this crisis means for working within this system. This could include identified current weaknesses, or you can tell us what has worked well for you and what has not worked so well. We’d also love to hear about the positives – about what has worked well, and where you’re proud of your response, your people and your community.

We want to hear these stories and share them to a wide audience but also learn from them in order to create the processes that will help us in a post-Covid world. We will be sharing these videos and photos on our social media and website. We are doing this in partnership with SHED (Sustainability, Health, Environment, Development ) who will be producing a new website called NECESSITY. The NECESSITY website will be a Learning and Living Archive (LLA) that will hold written project information, research and useful links, and a ‘living film’ archive drawn from across a wide range of sectors.

Don’t hesitate to contact us at hello@sharedassets.org.uk if you have any queries.