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The Detectives

This project has now finished, please see below for all the wonderful projects and achievements showcasing the Conan Doyle Collection.

The Conan Doyle Collection received £100,000 from the Arts Council's National Lottery Project Grants Libraries Fund to run our Detectives project.

The Conan Doyle Collection, bequeathed to the city of Portsmouth by Richard Lancelyn Green, brings together an unparalleled variety of books, documents and objects connected to Holmes and the life of his creator, including unique photographs, film posters, and letters from the influential and the famous.

Working with partners around the city we recruited 46 participants - Detectives - to create community projects to help people who were looking to return to work or start volunteering to gain work based skills and experience that boosts confidence.

The Detectives Project worked with individuals in many various ways that suited each Detective. The roles included providing a weekly routine, travelling to and from a venue, interviewing artists, authors or other professional people, working directly with these professionals to develop a project, make, create and design, research the collection, make the collection accessible, marketing and evaluation - the Detectives have been involved at every level with support at every stage of the process.

Voluntary experience was, and still continues, in the following roles:

Cataloguing archives and magazines, scanning and adding to Spydus, our Library Catalogue system
Research books and create a blog from the 16,000 within the Conan Doyle Collection
Maintaining this website and social media pages

The Detectives project has now finished but we will still be taking on Detectives when vacancies arise. To find out if there are any vacancies or to find more information please check our detectives page.

The following events, exhibitions and creations were part of this exciting two year project:

Open Art Exhibition 2023

After the previous years great success in Southsea Library, we were pleased to announce a new Open Art Exhibition would be launching in May 2023 which concluded in a display at Portsmouth Central Library from the 18th of November to the 2nd of December.

Using the themes The Lost World and The Poison Belt, supported by archives, books and objects from Conan Doyle Collection, our Detectives hosted an 'Open Art' exhibition.

Explore Open Art Exhibition 2023

Explore Immersive Art Experience

Explore All Artwork

Summer of Sherlock

The Detectives set up events for our Summer of Sherlock activities. We provided practical support at our Summer of Sherlock events such as devising and providing activities based on the collection and the communal knowledge the Detectives had gained on Sherlock Holmes.

All workshops and the final products were accessible for Detectives and our wider family audiences, to entertain, educate and promote the Conan Doyle Collection.

Explore Summer of Sherlock 2023 Make and Take

Explore Summer of Sherlock 2023 Theatre

Explore Summer of Sherlock 2022 Make and Take

Explore Summer of Sherlock 2022 Theatre

Worldwide Doyle

We hosted a series of lectures inviting authors, fans and academics to talks in 2022 and 2023. We also provided a public response to showcase talks city wide.

Explore the Worldwide Doyle Talks

Explore the Worldwide Doyle Workshops

Letters from the Archive

The Detectives next project was to share more of the wonderful Conan Doyle Collection with the people of Portsmouth. This project was inspired by all the letters that are held within the archives.

Explore Letters from the Archive

We Shine 2022 - Sherlock's Shadow

Using light and shadow the Detectives presented an immersive theatrical exploration of the mind behind the great detective Sherlock Holmes. This 10-minute performance repeated throughout the evening on the 17th, 18th and 19th of November 2022.

Explore We Shine 2022 - Sherlock's Shadow

The Detectives Imaginarium of Conan Doyle 2022 Art Exhibition

This was an exhibition of artwork inspired by the Conan Doyle Collection celebrating the uniqueness of each detective.

The exhibition was available from Thursday 14th July until 31st August 2022 at Southsea library on Palmerston Road.

Explore the exhibition workshops

The Illusions of Mystery

An immersive light exhibition using a projector and our Archives as inspiration. This was completed in November 2021 and was part of the We Shine Portsmouth event.

Explore The Illusions of Mystery