The Secret Life of Cumbria

The Secret Life of Cumbria is a book written by the people of Cumbria. A collection of stories about escape, love, grief, and favourite T-shirts!
 
Anyone who lived, worked in or visited Cumbria in 2008 could write their own pages by sending a text message or visiting the Secret Life web site.
 
Cumbria is a big place, both in the world and in our imaginations, with as many paths through it as there are people who live in or visit it. You can read Cumbria's Secret Life by finding your own way through the web site, moving from place to place.
 
Commissioned by folly, the Secret Life of Cumbria has been funded by Cumbria County Council, and developed by Blink, a not-for-profit creative technology research organisation.
 
The Secret Life of Cumbria is an exploration of how creative technology can build platforms and open channels for a local authority to undertake consultation. It explores not only which technologies to use, but how to understand what consultation means.
 
Its aim has been to bring to light unexpected insights, and to discover the right questions to ask, rather than asking for yes/no answers on pre defined topics. Secret Life tries to open a channel in which a local authority can listen to what it might not otherwise have heard.
 
As consultation, Secret Life of Cumbria has not been a closed, one-to-one relationship between the participants and the local authority, in which the collected responses are only seen by the council and then disappear into the archives. It is an open, many-to-many, public relationship in which people in Cumbria can share what they care about with each other, enabled by the council. But more than just a consultation tool, it is a form of participation in the arts in itself, whether that is through answering a question reflectively or reading the story on the Secret Life of Cumbria web site.