Culture – Vital North Partnership

Magical reality: digitally augmenting David Almond’s archive

How can cultural organisations collaboratively develop immersive digital experiences? And how can ideas about space and place in magical realism inform more creative approaches to designing augmented reality technologies?

In this blog post, find out about the Magical Reality project and app, available to download on Google Play (Android) and App Store (iPhone), how Newcastle University and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books worked with children, young people and digital designers to develop it, and what we’re doing next…

Many organisations in the cultural sector recognise that expanding digital capacity is a priority, but they are limited by funding, time and staff expertise to support this. The #CultureIsDigital 2018 report advocates for design-orientated digital thinking ‘to unleash the creative potential of technology’ and collaborating with technology partners is often seen as a solution for a lack of in-house resources.

But what types of approaches and models can support this kind of thinking? This was a question posted by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Through their Research and Partnership Development Call for the Next Generation of Immersive Experiences, they wanted to explore how arts and humanities knowledge could inform the development of new immersive technologies, and how this might inform the work of cultural organisations.

Dr Tom Schofield at Newcastle University’s Culture Lab, Professor Kim Reynolds in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics and Seven Stories successfully applied for a seven-month research project responding to this call, Children’s Magical Realism for New Spatial Interactions: AR and Archives.

Dr Tom Schofield leads an event in the Ouseburn Valley as part of the Being Human Festival 2018. Image: Newcastle University

In late 2017, Google and Apple had released new augmented reality features that allowed much more complicated interactions with real space on mobile phones. We wanted to explore whether magical realism, a literary genre that plays with the boundaries between real and imaginary spaces, could inspire new creative approaches to these new technical developments.

Seven Stories had recently acquired David Almond’s literary archive. An award-winning author of children’s and young adult books, David’s work explores ambiguous and confusing crossovers between worlds; past and present, everyday and mythical. We used this as our starting point to explore how researchers, museum professionals, digital designers, children and young people could inform new kinds of spatial interactions for AR. We wanted to experiment with a sustainable and collaborative approach to digital R&D in the context of cultural organisations.

From June to December 2018, Tom and Kim worked with Diego Trujillo Pisanty, a researcher and media artist, and Seven Stories. We led six creative workshops, some as part of the 2018 Great Exhibition of the North programme, engaging around 80 participants. During the Great Exhibition, Seven Stories delivered an artistic trail around the Ouseburn Valley featuring new writing by David Almond, and a major exhibition, ‘Where Your Wings Were’ focusing on his archive.

Families explore the Magical Reality app in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle. Image: Newcastle University

In the workshops, we wanted to create open environments where people could explore experimental ideas. Each workshop had a separate focus, but aimed to explore creative analogies to immersive technology – ideas of other worlds, magic, the fantastic and interdimensional – to inform the design of the app, and enhance our understanding of the value of spaces and places within David Almond’s work.

From the creative ideas generated in the workshops, we designed and built a smartphone app, Magical Reality, which leads you on a trail to find AR objects around the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle. Research Associate Diego led the technical development and it’s now available on Android and iOS platforms. The app uses AR technology to embed digital artefacts, developed from archive materials held at Seven Stories. We used an experimental and collaborative design approach to see how the knowledge and imaginative ideas of the different parties involved in the project could inform the development.

Here’s a video of the app in action:

There were many interesting things we learnt from evaluating this project, which was supported by Research Associate Dr Gabi Arrigoni; not least that the stakeholders involved consider innovation very differently. For the research team, the creative process informing the app was seen as the most significant contribution to the field; Seven Stories valued new ways of engaging with their audiences and connecting archive material to places; whereas digital professionals were interested in digital innovation around the app’s use of AR.

As Vital North Partnership Manager, one of the things I found most fascinating was seeing different kinds of knowledge and experience being brought together through the four workshops I took part in, and the way in which the research team created open spaces for knowledge exchange. I also really valued the way that this project moved beyond transactional digital commissioning and towards more experimental and open-ended R&D within a museum setting, which mirrors some of the processes Seven Stories uses as we develop our programmes and exhibitions.

You can read more about the workshops, the evaluation and the avenues for future research we identified in our report, Not Just Digital Knowledge: Collaboratively Developing Immersive Experiences in Cultural Organisations.

Since we finished our work on Children’s Magical Realism for New Spatial Interactions: AR and Archives in December, we’ve been busy! Firstly, Dr Tom Schofield and Professor Kim Reynolds have been busy working on academic outputs. Kim has given a paper on ‘Augmenting Almond’ at the University of Western Australia, and will be presenting this project in June in Berlin, and October at the University of Buckingham. Tom will be presenting a paper as part of Designing Interactive Systems 2019 in June in San Diego – as one of the most prestigious conferences for interaction design in the world, we’re very excited!

Secondly, Tom and Seven Stories were successful in a bid for AHRC Follow on Funding for an extension project, Embedding Magic: AR and Outreach. This will extend the work we began our original workshops by developing these into a programme that Seven Stories’ Creative Learning and Engagement team will be delivering with Research Associate Dr Miranda Iossifidis in the East End of Newcastle, empowering children and young people to connect with the places and spaces within their community. We’re also planning a short series of workshops for cultural and digital organisations to present this collaborative process in early summer. Watch this space!

To explore the Magical Reality app, visit Google Play or the App Store and for more information about our Magical Reality project, visit the Digital Cultures in Culture Lab website.

From the Source to the Sea: Being Human Festival 2018

This November, Newcastle University and Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books are busy preparing for an amazing programme of free events as part of the Being Human Festival 2018. Find out more in this blog post…

Two years ago, we dipped our toes in the waters of the Being Human Festival, a national festival of the humanities. And this year, Newcastle University’s Humanities Research Institute is one of the national festival hubs! So, I’m currently immersed in planning five events in partnership with Seven Stories… all inspired by our hub’s theme, From the Source to the Sea!

On Saturday 17th November, there are two opportunities for all the family to explore the rivers, seas and oceans in the Seven Stories Collection in a special hands-on experience, Once Upon a Tyne. Led by staff and research postgraduates from Newcastle University’s Children’s Literature Unit and the Seven Stories Collection team, see original manuscripts by Robert Westall, and illustrations by Judith Kerr and Polly Dunbar…

David Almond's notebooks, on display in the Where Your Wings Were exhibition. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books — David Almond’s notebooks, on display in the Where Your Wings Were exhibition. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books

Later that afternoon, join author and Lecturer in Creative Writing, Ann Coburn, for our creative writing workshop for adults, Undiscovered Land: Write Like David Almond. Start your own story incorporating elements of memory, history, magic and transformation. I can’t wait to see what our writers come up with!

On Sunday 18th November, come and take part in our Wavering Boundaries walking tour, led by Dr Tom Schofield from Digital Cultures in Culture Lab. Magical realism, augmented reality and literary archives come together in this guided walk around the Ouseburn Valley, and you’ll be one of the very first to try out our Magical Reality app.

“My work explores the frontier between rationalism and superstition and the wavering boundary between the two.” David Almond

Dr Tom Schofield leads a guided tour. Image: Newcastle University

And, if you want to find out more about David Almond’s stories of the North East, come to Dr Lucy Pearson’s Tales of the Tyne talk and tour of the Seven Stories Where Your Wings Were exhibition later that afternoon!

Seven Stories are also supporting Newcastle University’s final festival event, Songs from the Dam, with Kathryn Tickell, David Almond and Amy Thatcher. This special musical performance will present local songs and folk tales, and celebrates David Almond’s new book The Dam, beautifully illustrated by Levi Pinfold, which tells the story of the flooding of Kielder Water.

Amy Thatcher, David Almond and Kathryn Tickell will perform as part of the festival. Photograph by Georgia Claire

And that’s not all: there are lots of other fascinating events as part of Newcastle University’s Being Human Festival hub – from foodbank histories, to quantum tunnelling… and from the source to the sea!

Being Human is the UK’s only national festival of the humanities and took place this year between 15^th – 24^th November 2018. The festival is led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. Visit the Humanities Research Institute website for full details of Newcastle University’s events and to book: www.ncl.ac.uk/nuhri/events

A North-East Heritage ABC

Exploring your local heritage is as easy as learning your ABC. In this blog post, find out about an alphabet schools project led by Newcastle University Library’s Outreach team, who collaborated with Historic England, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and the Hatton Gallery…

Inspired by hearing about the ‘A Manchester Alphabet’ project, where 8 primary schools in the North West created their own heritage alphabets, Newcastle University Library led a project with nine classes of Year 5 children, who researched, wrote and illustrated their own alphabet books exploring their local heritage.

Newcastle University’s Special Collections Education Outreach Officer Gillian Johnston led the project, which formed part of Historic England’s Heritage Schools programme, and 240 children from five local schools took part.

Newcastle University's Special Collections, including Old Aunt Elspa's ABC. Image: Newcastle University — Newcastle University’s Special Collections, including Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC. Image: Newcastle University

For Gillian, the starting point for the project was Old Aunt Elspa’s ABC, an alphabet book with woodblock printed letters and associated images by Joseph Crawhall II, held in the University’s Special Collections. The University Library also holds early hornbooks, and there are a number of alphabet books within the Booktrust collection.

Gillian got in touch with Paula Wride, Seven Stories’ Collections Officer, to find out about alphabet books in their Collection. Alongside the extensive Pat Garrett ‘ABC books’ collection, Seven Stories hold original archives for books including Judy Brook’s Mrs Noah’s ABC 123, Robert Crowther’s pop-up Most Amazing Hide and Seek Alphabet Book and Beverley Naidoo and Prodeepta Das’ S is for South Africa.

These collections were displayed during a CPD course which was attended by primary school teachers from Barley Mow Primary School, Bridgewater Primary School, Byker Primary School, St John’s Primary School, and Walkergate Community School.

Teachers exploring Seven Stories' alphabet books with Collections Officer Paula Wride. Image: Newcastle University — Teachers exploring Seven Stories’ alphabet books with Collections Officer Paula Wride. Image: Newcastle University

Over the course of the CPD day, the teachers explored the alphabet book collections, and went on a heritage walk around central Newcastle to find out about the history of the area. They explored different artistic techniques for illustrating their alphabets with the Hatton Gallery’s Education team and tried out creative and non-fiction writing styles.

Next, the teachers used this framework and additional support provided in school by the University Library to develop their project, and engaged each class with creating their own heritage alphabets.

Finally, the children’s artwork and writing was professionally collated by Michael Sharp from the University Library’s Special Collections team to make a series of beautiful alphabet books. These were printed by Print Services, Newcastle University and presented to the children in a special assembly in school – along with their Heritage Schools plaque from Historic England!

Children with their finished alphabet books.

For Gillian: “Working with local primary schools was great for Newcastle University Library. It gave us the chance to raise awareness of our Special Collections amongst local teachers and demonstrate how individual items from our collections can be used to inspire fun and creative educational projects.”

For Paula at Seven Stories: “Creating the digital resource for this project was a real bonus of this collaboration – this is a living resource that has a legacy on our website. We loved highlighting this project to the authors and illustrators whose collections were used.”

And Hazel from the Hatton Gallery agrees: “For the Hatton Gallery, it was a great opportunity to work in collaboration with Newcastle University Library, schools, Historic England and Seven Stories.”

Gillian Johnston introducing the alphabet books project at the teachers' CPD day. Image: Newcastle University — Gillian Johnston introducing the alphabet books project at the teachers’ CPD day. Image: Newcastle University

What did the teachers think? One of the teachers who participated said: “We are proud to be a Heritage School. It has given children an amazing sense of pride seeing their book in print. Each child has gained new experiences through heritage walks, walks around the immediate school area, a bridges walk along the Tyne as well as working with the Hatton Gallery artist.”

And the young people loved it too! Students said:

· “Everyone put so much effort in.”

· “It was fun learning new things about the area.”

· “I’ve never had a book with my work in and now I do I’m really proud of myself.”

Thanks to the project, there are now an additional 5 Heritage Schools in the North East. Historic England’s Victoria Angel said: “The books are absolutely fantastic – they’re wonderful. It was great to see how inspired the schools’ senior leadership teams were by them! The children really saw that the books reflected their area, and their poetry, artwork, prose, research and independent learning is clearly demonstrated in the books.”

Evaluating the project, we reflected on what an interesting collaboration this has been – and we’re hoping it will lead to additional partnership work in the future. And aren’t the alphabet books that the children created amazing?

Thank you to colleagues at Newcastle University Library, Historic England, the Hatton Gallery and Seven Stories for their contributions to this post.

A vital partnership: Seven Stories and Newcastle University

In this blog post, I’m reflecting on the Vital North Partnership’s work from 2015 to 2018, supported by Arts Council England’s Museum Resilience Fund. Through the programme, Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books have strengthened their leadership role as Britain’s home of children’s literature. Funding allowed them to invest in their strategic collaboration with Newcastle University, and supported business planning and income diversification.

Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University share the ambition that Newcastle becomes a centre for excellence in children’s literature – for collections, research, learning, engagement and professional practice.

From 2015 – 2018, Seven Stories and Newcastle University worked together on the Vital North Partnership, a strategic development programme funded by Arts Council England’s Museum Resilience Fund. This aimed to:

Enhance and scale up their collaborative partnership
Increase Seven Stories’ financial resilience and diversify income
Support Seven Stories’ long-term business planning

Arts Council England funding, matched by Newcastle University, supported the employment of a Partnership Manager (me!) to lead the collaboration, and provided a project budget.

Students from Newcastle University's BA in English Literature visiting Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University — Students from Newcastle University’s BA in English Literature visiting Seven Stories. Image: Newcastle University

Developing a museum / university partnership

The Vital North Partnership has strengthened and significantly developed Seven Stories’ collaboration with Newcastle University, through activities including:

Collaborating on the UK’s first English Literature Knowledge Transfer Partnership, supported by AHRC and InnovateUK. This embedded a research function into Seven Stories’ Collections and Exhibitions Team and informed the Michael Morpurgo: A Lifetime in Stories exhibition.
Being recognised as the Knowledge Exchange / Transfer Initiative of the Year at the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards 2017.
Securing three fully-funded PhDs looking at Seven Stories’ collections and spaces, supported by Newcastle University, the AHRC and the National Productivity Investment Fund.
Seven Stories engaged with 9 undergraduate and postgraduate taught modules at Newcastle University, from Music to Geography, providing learning and skills development opportunities.
Seven Stories hosted 20 Newcastle University student internships, from museums studies to film production, helping young people to experience cultural and creative careers.
Delivering 33 joint public events, from expert talks at Newcastle University to activities for early years in Seven Stories’ Studio.

Frances Hardiinge and Aishwarya Subramanian. Image: Newcastle University — Frances Hardinge and Aishwarya Subramanian in conversation at the ‘Fantasy Worlds with Frances Hardinge’ event.. Image: Newcastle University

Increasing Seven Stories’ financial resilience

Arts Council England’s funding supported Seven Stories’ financial resilience by:

Enabling Seven Stories to invest in marketing activity and branding development to understand audiences better and encourage new and repeat visits.
The Vital North Partnership supported Seven Stories’ first crowdfunding campaign, which will enhance their work with families with additional sensory needs.
Through collaborative activity with Newcastle University, Seven Stories were able to access higher education-related funding and support, from funders such as EPSRC, The Leverhulme Trust, Horizon 2020 and ERDF.

A bird's-eye view of Newcastle Gateshead in 2065. Image: Newcastle University — A bird’s-eye view of Newcastle Gateshead in 2065, created by Seven Stories’ visitors. Image: Newcastle University

A sustainable future for Seven Stories

Through the Vital North Partnership’s work, Seven Stories invested in their infrastructure and explored how their collaboration with Newcastle University could inform a long-term business strategy:

Seven Stories invested in additional collections storage, enabling additional collection acquisitions during 2015 – 2018.
Working with Newcastle University Library, Seven Stories explored collaboratively acquiring and providing access to collections. This included working on joint outreach projects with 8 local schools, and jointly acquiring the largest private children’s literature collection in the UK.
As part of the Newcastle City Futures Urban Living Partnership, Seven Stories’ visitors explored the future of the city, informing a new architectural project on reimagining children’s spaces.
Developing a detailed options appraisal for Seven Stories’ future infrastructure, and securing funding through the Higher Education Innovation Fund to explore models for the long-term future of the collaboration.

Students with their fairytales! — Pupils with fairytale books created as part of an outreach project led by the University Library with Seven Stories and the Hatton Gallery.

Through the project, Seven Stories’ work became embedded within Newcastle University’s structures, and enhanced their financial resilience.

For Newcastle University, new research collaborations were developed, wider audiences accessed academic research, and the Partnership provided unique opportunities for teaching and learning.

The partnership between the two organisations has been recognised by Arts Council England through the 2018 – 22 National Portfolio scheme, and with match funding from Newcastle University, we are looking forward to an ambitious programme over the next four years. And for more information on that – watch this space!

For more information about the Vital North Partnership and its activity, visit https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/vitalnorth/

Consulting with Seven Stories: a new collaboration with the Business School

In the 2017/18 academic year, Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books have worked with Newcastle University Business School on a new collaboration. Find out about how a management consultancy project is informing Seven Stories’ membership schemes and benefits in this blog post.

There’s an interesting relationship between charities and business. Charities are organisations established to meet a charitable purpose, for the public benefit – not for profit. They are part of what’s sometimes called the ‘third sector’, falling between public services and private enterprise. And of course, charities share similar activities to private companies. They generate income. They employ people. They produce end of year accounts, marketing strategies, business plans…

So, there’s a clear opportunity for the Vital North Partnership to support Seven Stories’ work through collaborations with Newcastle University Business School, with its expertise in accounting and finance, business management, marketing and economics. After initial meetings with colleagues there, we identified the third-year module, BUS3053, where third year students undertake a management consultancy project in place of a dissertation, as a great starting point.

The new Time to Get Up exhibition at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children's Books. Image: Seven Stories, photography by Richard Kenworthy — The new Time to Get Up exhibition at Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books. Image: Seven Stories, photography by Richard Kenworthy

The purpose of the Management Consultancy Project module is to give students experience of working with a real employer on a live issue. Module leader, Sarah Carnegie, explains: “The module is one of the final year capstone modules that students at the Business School can take. It provides an opportunity for our students to apply the skills and knowledge gained in their studies and is an example of work integrated learning. Research shows this style of learning can assist students in developing their career management skills, as well as being a challenging academic project. The management consultancy projects are key to the Business School developing links with businesses and promotes employer engagement.”

Students: Louisa Abercrombie, Thomas Crozier, William Inkster, Matthew Parnell, Emma Roberts, and Amos Syn were assigned to the project. In consultation with Seven Stories, they defined a project brief to “recommend ways for the client to improve and simplify the overall performance of memberships, in order to maximise revenue in turn improving long-term sustainability.”

After initial meetings with Seven Stories’ Chief Operating Officer, Jon Riley, and Seven Stories’ Development and Relationships team in October 2017, the students began their research. They identified Seven Stories’ market position and competitors, examined Seven Stories’ existing data and secondary data and conducted and analysed primary research including surveys and focus groups.

The students' focus groups included parents with young children. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — The students’ focus groups included parents with young children. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

They then used this research to inform their conclusions and a series of recommendations for enhancing Seven Stories’ membership schemes, which they presented to Seven Stories with their final consultancy portfolio and written report in March 2018.

For Emma and the student team, “Working with Seven Stories gave us all a valuable insight into challenges businesses face and allowed us to actively seek solutions to help a real situation. Every one of us developed skills, contributed to the research and gained real work experience. When we faced challenges, we worked together as a team to overcome these. We all thoroughly enjoyed forming innovative and creative solutions together with Seven Stories to enhance their fantastic business.”

Sarah Carnegie added that: “Academic staff agree the initial scope of the work that the student group may engage with, but it is down to the group to actually deliver. Each student group has weekly contact, during term time, with a member of academic staff as it is important to build momentum and it’s amazing to see how engrossed the students become in their projects and how hard they work for their clients.”

The Business School Consultancy Project looked at Seven Stories' visitor membership schemes. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy — The Business School Consultancy Project looked at Seven Stories’ visitor membership schemes. Image: Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books, photography by Richard Kenworthy

And Seven Stories were impressed with the professional way that the students approached the project. Jon said: “From the very first meeting with Emma, Tom, Will, Louisa, Matt, and Amos, it was obvious that they were really engaged with the consultancy project. They defined their own brief and worked with a number of colleagues in our team to gain a thorough understanding of our work. The conclusions the students came up with were interesting and innovative – we’re actively considering implementing some of their recommendations over the next year.”

What’s next? We’re discussing a second management consultancy opportunity with Seven Stories for the 2018/19 BUS3053 cohort. We’re also talking about collaborating as part of Newcastle University Business School’s MBA internship pilot later in 2018. Watch this space!

Filming Seven Stories’ Life-Changing Stories campaign

Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books are currently raising £7,000 to put children with additional needs at the heart of their story. In this post, hear how film production intern and Newcastle University PhD candidate Evripidis Karydis has supported Seven Stories’ very first crowdfunding campaign…

Seven Stories believe that stories help children to understand the world around them, and that every child regardless of age, gender, background and ability should have the opportunity to enjoy this experience.

With this in mind and with the promise of 50% match funding from the Community Foundation Tyne and Wear, they decided to try crowdfunding for the first time to secure additional funding from their supporters and the public. Seven Stories will be using the money raised to fund a range of accessible events and experiences designed specifically for children with sensory and additional needs.

Launching the Life-changing Stories campaign, Kate Edwards, Seven Stories’ Chief Executive, said: “Our ambition is for Seven Stories to be a hub for parents and carers of children with disabilities to socialise, play and learn more about how to enrich their children’s lives through the wonderful world of children’s books.”

This campaign video was filmed and edited by PhD student Evripidis Karydis (or Evris, for short!), who produced two 4 minute trailer videos to support the communications. Evris is undertaking an NCL Internship through Newcastle University’s Careers Service. NCL Internships are open to all current Newcastle University students, and offer a placement of up to 100 hours during University terms and a student bursary of £750, made up of contributions from the business and the University.

Marketing and Communications Manager Victoria Sanderson, said of Evris’ work on the crowdfunding campaign: “Evris’ performance throughout the project was exceptional; he offered expert guidance when it was required, identified any risks prior to filming which increased efficiency, met deadlines, used his initiative when editing the videos and was accommodating with amends, even when they arrived after signing-off. Overall, Evris was professional and a delight to work with.”

This built on Evris’ previous internship with Seven Stories in the 2016/17 academic year, where he filmed Seven Stories’ Living Books project in early years settings, working with the Creative Learning and Engagement Team.

For Evris, “having already completed a NCL internship with Seven Stories during the 2016/17 academic year it was not difficult for me to decide to work with the foundation once again. The people at Seven Stories are true professionals and really helped me to produce high quality videos for their causes. Furthermore, the reason behind the crowdfunding campaign was another motivation for me to say yes and work once more with Seven Stories and I am pleased that my videos contributed in order to achieve the goal of raising £7000.”

“Being an aspiring filmmaker myself working through my internship I have managed again to practice my filmmaking craft and helped me develop my communication skills.”

“The highlight for me during my placement was when I got the chance to film a family for the crowdfunding campaign video as it gave me a good insight of the people who were going to be benefited by the campaign.”

“I truly believe that the work being done at Seven Stories is really important as it is making a massive difference in children’s lives and their families and I would really like to work with them again in the future.”

Take a look at Evris’ second video from the Life-changing Stories campaign:

And the results? Well, Seven Stories hit over 75% of their funding target in the first day of the crowdfunding campaign, which is amazing news! Thank you to Evris for helping to make this campaign such a success. But they still need a few more donations to hit their £7000 target before 2^nd April 2018 – can you help Seven Stories to ensure that every child is part of their story?

Find out more about the campaign and donate now at: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/life-changing-stories

A Place at the Table 2018

On 6th February 2018, thanks to a bursary from CILIP North East, I attended Inclusive Minds’ third annual A Place at the Table event at Penguin Random House in London. A Place at the Table aims to provide a space for the children’s book industry to share best practice around inclusion and diversity and commit to taking practical actions to effect change. In this blog post, I’ll be reflecting on the day and outlining some of the actions that Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University are taking through the Vital North Partnership…

Author Juno Dawson, in her opening keynote, celebrated how far the publishing industry has come since the first A Place at the Table event in 2016. She mentioned lots of amazing books and authors – from Patrice Lawrence’s prize-winning debut Orangeboy, to Angie Thomas’s bestselling The Hate U Give – and new initiatives like CILIP’s current diversity review of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards. I noted lots of books I want to read – including Juno’s!

Author Juno Dawson opened the A Place at the Table event. Image: Inclusive Minds

Then there were the roundtable and forum discussions, where we discussed barriers to authentic inclusion, and identified ways to shift these. For Seven Stories, the artform of children’s literature is at the heart of everything they do – and it’s by going to events like this that they can flag up with publishers that inclusion is fundamental to the national story they aim to tell. Seven Stories’ workforce (like that of many arts organisations) is not particularly diverse – they’re aiming to shift that barrier through targeted pathways to work programmes from 2018 to 2022.

Highlights of the day for me were hearing from Year 10 pupil Jarvia, one of Inclusive Minds’ Ambassadors, about her reading experiences – she spoke about reading new writing on Wattpad as she feels it’s less filtered – and I loved hearing Jay Hulme’s “angry trans” performance poetry (his description!):

In the afternoon discussions, I ended up sat next to the author, actress and presenter Cerrie Burnell. In her presentation, she talked about how the books she read as a child didn’t reflect her experience. She recounted a story about playing at Peter Pan in the playground: there was already a Wendy and a Tinkerbell, so one of the other children suggested that she could be Captain Hook – Cerrie was adamant that she was more of a Tigerlily. Cerrie encouraged her fellow authors to represent difference in an incidental way: “write the thing that you know, or write the thing that you want to see.”

Robin Stevens, author of the Murder Most Unladylike mysteries, talked about the two types of offence her writing might potentially cause (the one she loses sleep over is making errors about misrepresenting cultures and experiences outside of her own, which is why in her recent books she has been working with sensitivity readers) and Di Airey of Diversity Dynamics reminded us that although publishing is in some ways ahead of other sectors, that we still have a way to go: “There’s not enough change: there are too many people who hide an aspect of their difference.”

Discussion inclusion, equality and diversity at A Place At The Table. Image: Inclusive Minds — Discussion inclusion, equality and diversity at A Place at the Table. Image: Inclusive Minds

I also heard about so many other initiatives and voices over the course of the day through the insights and case studies: from new publishers like Knights Of; titles including Penny Joelson’s I Have No Secrets and Otter-Barry Books and Pop-Up Projects’ Rising Stars anthology; initiatives like Penguin Random House’s WriteNow programme; prizes like the Amnesty CILIP Honour; accessible events as part of the Southbank Centre’s Imagine Festival. I’m taking lots of ideas and contacts away from the event to follow up on.

It was an inspiring and thought-provoking day, but ensuring the Vital North Partnership’s activities are inclusive is an ongoing process. We’ve done some interesting work, such as our Diverse Voices? symposium in November, and our recent Geographies of Gender and Generation collaboration, and in 2018, we’ll be focussing on BAME voices in children’s literature and activist networks through a new AHRC Creative Economy postdoctoral fellowship led by Dr Aishwarya Subramanian. But there’s still more to do. As Juno said so eloquently in her opening keynote: “The worst thing we can do is think we’ve done it, we’ve achieved diversity. We haven’t done diversity. You can’t tick diversity off the list.”

For more information about A Place at the Table 2018, visit: http://www.inclusiveminds.com/a-place-at-the-table-2018.php

Culture change: new approaches to higher education and cultural sector collaborations

Universities and cultural organisations are working more closely than ever before. New roles and initiatives are emerging to manage these collaborations…

Navigating a challenging funding landscape, arts and cultural organisations are increasingly collaborating to make their resources stretch further and engage new audiences. Universities are similarly turning to partners, who can help to demonstrate impact beyond the academy, support challenge-based research funding bids and enhance the (increasingly expensive) student experience.

Aside from these external drivers, there are synergies between the two sectors. Both arts organisations and HEIs can be seen as ‘anchor institutions’, not-for-profit organisations which contribute to learning, economic growth, skills development and community engagement within their regions. Many universities run their own cultural venues; some of our national cultural institutions are eligible to apply for RCUK funding through their status as Independent Research Organisations. You could say we’re natural partners.

And as the overlap between our missions, activities and communities creeps closer, new opportunities for collaboration are unlocked. However, the Museum and Universities Partnership Initiative identifies that partnerships between universities and cultural organisations imply ‘equality… longevity… shared objectives and risks’. So working in partnership requires just that – work. But how are organisations managing these relationships?

The National Archives and RLUK's Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities conference. Photo by Matt Blair. — The National Archives and RLUK’s Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities conference. Photo by Matt Blair.

Roles at the edge

For larger organisations managing multiple cultural or HEI partnerships, co-ordination functions often sit with a team within the organisation’s staff structure. The National Archives’ Academic Engagement team co-ordinate engagement with academic audiences; Kings College London’s Cultural Institute facilitates collaborations between the University and the cultural sector.

But as you drill down to a collaboration between an individual university and arts organisation, new partnership models and roles, like mine, are beginning to emerge.

Newcastle University students visit the Bears exhibition at Seven Stories, which was supported by a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between the two organisations. Image: Newcastle University

Spanning the boundaries

I manage the partnership between Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books and Newcastle University. I identify myself as working for the partnership, or, both partners, simultaneously. My post is jointly funded by the partners and Arts Council England and is embedded within the staff structure of both organisations.

Our partnership is built on a shared ambition: that Newcastle becomes a centre for excellence in children’s literature. My work focuses on initiatives which are genuinely beneficial for both organisations, support our jointly agreed objectives and progress our long-term relationship.

Of course, working for two different institutions isn’t perfect – just imagine working between four different offices and two IT systems – but it’s a model that’s proving successful. Since 2015, our partnership has generated over £800,000 worth of funded activity and engaged with over 100,000 people. And beyond the numbers, I think that more interesting and innovative things happen at this intersection.

A collective ‘brand’

An extension of this model is Opera North and the University of Leeds’ pioneering DARE collaboration, positioned as a collective ‘brand’ embedded within both organisations. Celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, the partnership has impressive statistics, encompassing more than 250 projects and attracting £3million in new funding.

DARE Director Lesley Patrick says: “The fundamental pillars to building the relationship included identifying areas of common ambition, to form an equal partnership with a common language. This created a framework which removes ‘policing’ and allows conversations to breathe.”

“DARE has allowed each organisation to prioritise the development of initiatives that make a positive contribution to achieving its own ambitions. It drives the partners to think and act more broadly, outside the traditional spheres – it enables business development.”

Participants in Northumbria University, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and Seven Stories' MUPI-funded project, A Taste of Home, explore the Bears exhibition at Seven Stories. — Participants in Northumbria University, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and Seven Stories’ MUPI-funded project, A Taste of Home, explore the Bears exhibition at Seven Stories.

Networks of partnerships

And as partnerships between the sectors increase, new co-ordination initiatives are developing to support, catalyse and highlight activity. Culture Forum North launched in 2015, bringing over 50 Higher Education and cultural sector partners in the North together to discuss collaborations. The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s MUPI project, which began in 2015, brokers and analyses partnership activity between small to medium-sized museums and HEIs.

There’s a culture change going on here: arts research and arts organisations are demonstrating that our sectors can work together innovatively and effectively. But external funding is still primarily sector-specific. Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council have yet to release a collaborative funding call. Perhaps there’s an opportunity here for our funders to work in partnership, too?