Craft Expertise workshop series – tackling racism and inequality in craft

As part of the Craft Expertise project I worked with STEAMhouse in Birmingham to run a three-day workshop series (or STEAM Sprint) which ran over three weeks from November-December 2020. Participants in the workshops included makers who had been involved with this project, Craftspace and Crafts Council UK. The workshops were initially going to be

Recap of Craft Economies: Inequalities, Opportunities, Interventions conference

This post was originally written for the BCMCR (Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research) blog. On 4th December I ran the Craft Economies: Inequalities, Opportunities, Interventions conference, as part of my AHRC Innovation Fellowship project Craft Expertise. The aim of the conference, which took place at STEAMhouse Birmingham, was to highlight and discuss issues around

Craft, Expertise and Value

Now that my UKRI/RCUK Innovation Fellowship, Craft Expertise (short name) is off the ground and the first round of interviews and ethnography have been completed, I’m able to share some initial thoughts. First a quick recap – this project is in collaboration with Crafts Council UK and aims to support greater diversity in the UK

New project – Supporting diversity and expertise development in the contemporary craft economy

As of March 1st I began my new AHRC Leadership Fellows project, continuing my collaboration with Crafts Council UK. The project seeks to develop an empirical and theoretical account of the nature of craft expertise among primarily black and minority ethnic (BAME) women in the UK. As I have detailed in this blog over the

Projects update

The Creative Economy Engagement (CEEF) project in collaboration with Crafts Council UK is now coming to an end, and there are some exciting outputs from the project which will be posted on the Crafts Council website soon. The most recent blog post updates about the final workshop and next steps are here. I am delighted

Creative Economy Engagement Project Update

This is an update on my AHRC funded project with the Crafts Council originally posted on their website.  I am now almost three months into this AHRC-supported Creative Economy Engagement Fund project in collaboration with the Crafts Council. For this project we are looking at how digital technology, mainly social media, could support diversity in

Diversity in Cultural Leadership: a report for the West Midlands Leadership Commission

Since late 2017 I have been working with my colleague Dr Annette Naudin and Professor Jenny Phillimore of University of Birmingham on a report which maps diversity in cultural leadership in the West Midlands. This is part of a larger project on diversity in leadership by the West Midlands Leadership Commission, led by Mayor of

Post-PhD

It has been a while since I have posted on this blog and that is because I was busy finishing my PhD thesis and preparing for the viva. That is all done and minor corrections have been submitted, so now I am waiting for that official letter! Just before Christmas I was delighted to have

An exercise in distancing

Last week I had my final review for my PhD, which is the formal meeting at my University to ensure I am on track and ready to submit by this September. At that meeting I presented my research in five minutes, and I wondered how on earth I could condense my thesis into such a

Two days at CAMEo

In the past week I have had the pleasure of attending two events at the Research Institute for Media and Cultural Economies (CAMEo) at the University of Leicester: Literature, Writing and the Creative Economy on 24 Feb and Co-working Dynamics and the City on 1 March. The themes of both events do not immediately appear