My learning practice is founded in a cultural learning pedagogy: this is one that holds knowledge as relational, pluralistic, participative and co-created. There is a core of cultural learning in my arts and place practice, which naturally flows through my work in formal and informal teaching and learning environments.
Cultural Learning Pedagogy
My career has operated from a sector-academy praxis and this has given me a unique insight into the value of creativity and creative education. This I have honed into a cultural learning pedagogy, which informs all that I do in my work, whether this be in placemaking, the arts, or any formal or informal education setting. As my works extends and develops, so too does this understanding – as with any learning journey, it never stops and is a lifelong endeavour:
Cultural Learning works with cultural experience as a catalyst for personal and social transformation. It facilitates the mediation and communication of ideas and supports understandings about the self, society and culture and is an aesthetic and critical approach in arts-based learning that generates public benefits through socially embedded and embodied inquiry.
It is a relational and co-constructed practice that works with cultural meanings, identities, stories and artefacts. It is a critical and expressive material praxis, communicating meaning and mediating values that recognises the importance of including the multivariate cultural references of all participants in the learning environment.
I owe a great deal to Anna Cutler and her work on creative learning pedagogies, and to Tim Jones and his understanding of the role of culture as change agent, for inspiring my cultural learning pedagogy.
Current & Recent academic roles
Reviewer, UKRI with National Centre for Creative Health - Collaborative community research to tackle health inequalities funding strand
Senior Fellow, Institute of Place Management
External Advisor, Dartington Arts School MFA, MA, PgDip, PgCert Arts and Ecology programmes,
Editorial Board member Journal of Arts and Communities
External Advisor, University of the Highlands and Islands MA Art and Social Practice
Advisory Board member, University of Sussex Liberal Arts
Special Advisor, Urban Creativity Journal
Reviewer, Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy
Reviewer, Art Cities of the Future (book)
Recent learning commentary
Creative Leadership Now, The Culture Capital Exchange, 2021
Observatories for earthly education, Assembly for Permacircular Museums, Panel discussion, 2021
Digital Learning Together: Tate, Tate Exchange and co-creation, Keynote, Museum Ludwig, 2020
The Arts and Human Flourishing, Book chapter, Forthcoming
Purdue University & Creative Placemaking Communities - Creative Placemaking
Advanced Leadership Certificate 2023
Co-teaching, with long-term collaborator Dr Anita McKeown, the Creative Community Engagement and Healthy Cultural Ecosystems modules.
The Certificate programme grows and supports culturally competent, collaborative leaders who aim to enhance quality of life in their communities for as many people as possible through creative placemaking. Students gain greater expertise in several critical skill sets for creative placemakers: systems thinking, community development, local economic development, site planning, alliance building, sustainable cultural tourism, and more, coming from a focus on the craft of placemaking.
More on the Certificate programme can be found on the Creative Placemaking Communities website.
Academic Archers
A group of BBC Radio 4’s The Archers fans with an academic interest in the programme I co-founded with Dr Nicola Headlam.
It started as bit of fan-fun, and now we are now 7 conferences, 5 books (with Emerald), 4 podcast series and a YouTube channel in.
When we conceived the idea of Academic Archers and held the first conference on a beg-and-borrow budget we could not have comprehended that what was being created then would form in short time into a new type of community of enquiry. We deliberately ignore, poke fun at, disrupt or collapse normative academy-fan group boundaries, experimenting and transforming knowledge and love of The Archers into an innovative interdisciplinary learning community.
We have garrned a lot of support and appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph, and on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme/Woman’s Hour/PM/Feedback, and across local and regional press and radio.
Thriving Cities
I worked with University of Virginia Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Thriving Cities on a three-phased project that looked at the scope of creative placemaking.
The first phase of the project was a mapping creative placemaking field; the second phase identified gaps in the field. It then went on to signpost emerging frontiers of research, practice, and assessment that are either aiming to fill the gaps articulated or that are happening in response to other developments. The final phase offered interpretations and recommendations, forming the basis of continuing research.
The research questions were: How is creative placemaking defined? What, if any, are the main theoretical camps in these definitions?; What claims are made of creative placemaking outcomes and outputs?; How is creative placemaking measured? What are the metrics applied? What are the gaps or anomalies in this activity?; and What creative placemaking projects represent best practice in outcomes/outputs and evaluations/metrics?
Creative Campus Initiative (2009-15)
Co-Director (hosted by University for Creative Arts)
Commissioning and curation of four major regional projects across 13 HEI’s in response to London2012 which created pervasive change in HEI working and secured legacy along employability and partnership lines; large scale site-specific installations across the Olympic Village and Gatwick Airport; writing/editing of Initiative book and Journal articles; strategic and tactical sustainability and legacy planning along employability and graduate development lines with partners incl. NESTA, Turning Point SE and ACE; £1M+ budget fundraising incl. HEFCE, ACE and HLF; planning and management; contract negotiation; national and international partnership brokerage; creative, student and public learning programme commissioning, curation and delivery. Winner of Podium ‘Creative Cultural Project’ award and shortlisted the Coubertin Olympic Vision Award.
Network Manager (hosted by University of Brighton)
Strategic leadership and development of the Network model, partnerships and income models; lobbying and advocacy for the Network and HE and the creative industries, in the southeast, nationally and globally; devising and creation of creative industries and HE online research and practice journal; daily co-ordination of the Network, its project teams and employees.
Cultural Co-ordinator (hosted by Universities of Brighton and Sussex)
Management, curation and delivery of Universities of Sussex and Brighton 15 London2012-inspired collaborative research-led interventions and events across arts/science/sports disciplines that culminated in a 3-month schools and public arts programme with external arts/education/ community partners, attracting 250K+ audience and a joint Inspire mark. Worked with external local cultural stakeholders to create new/develop existing arts, culture and commercial relationships external to the HEI’s and the projects are still embedded in teaching/learning at both institutions.
Awards
Creative Campus Initiative wins Creative Cultural Project at Podium Awards
Publications
Establishing an evidence base for the Cultural Olympiad: London 2012, Cultural Trends Journal special edition, co-editorial, January 2013
100m, Creative Campus Initiative: cultivating talent, celebrating excellence, co-directors commentary book, 2011
Commission examples
Dysarticulate, Jon Adams
The Big Swim, Tine Bech
A Hundred Seas Rising, Suki Chan
1908, Lightning Ensemble
New Creatives, University of Portsmouth Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries SPACE Off-site programme in partnership with Aspex Gallery
Billy Bow, collaboration between the Nuffield Theatre, the University of Southampton and Southampton Solent University, created by Dr Andrew Fisher, from the University of Southampton, and naval historian Dr Ian Friel
Architecture Centre Network
Head of Learning (2009-2012)
Instigator of built environment, arts sector and international cultural learning and knowledge exchange activity (Europe/USA/Japan) and high profile sector partnerships incl. STEMNET, LOCOG, RIBA, V&A; securing of sole organisational funding from UK and EU; successful sector and education government lobbying/advocacy including with DCMS, DCLG, DBiz, DfE; creation of a cohesive built environment education team across UK/international network; creation of pedagogy and CPD programmes.
