Impact case study database

Drawing on the complexity sciences as a cross-disciplinary theoretical base for its research, the CPU-Lab harnesses the potential of computational modelling to explore the impact of disruptive technologies in urban transformation, Smart Cities and Future Cities. The research has direct impact on urban policy makers at the strategic policy formulation stage (ex-ante) and innovative design practitioners, working towards more sustainable and liveable future cities.

A complexity approach to smart and sustainable cities of the future: As founding members of the ESRC-funded Data and Cities as Complex Adaptive Systems (DACAS) strategic network (GBP100,799) with the University of Tokyo, Imperial College London, University of Aberdeen, Wuhan University, University of Sao Paulo and University of Manchester, the Lab has generated agenda-setting impact on researchers and policy makers for sustainable development through promotion of a transdisciplinary approach to urban transformations. DACAS has established enduring connectivity with public bodies and civic leaders including Manchester City Council (MCC), RIBA, Future Cities Catapult (now CPC), Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and government stakeholders in Brazil, China and Japan. As one of the most respected global policy brief publishers on issues of sustainability, collaboration with the United Nations – Institute of Advanced Studies led to the production of the international policy brief ‘Sustainable Smart Cities: Applying Complexity Science to Achieve Urban Sustainability’ co-authored by Sengupta and Hyde. This engages critically with technology provider-led implementation strategies for Smart Cities and identifies practical policy steps for government actors to empower citizen-led, bottom-up sustainability agendas. It is the most viewed and second most downloaded (across three languages) UN policy brief in the series [A].

Informing the development of Manchester’s digital strategy: In the Synchronicity project, the Lab worked collaboratively with MCC and Bronze Labs (a technology SME) to test integration of the use of IoT/urban data for agile local governance and strategic policy formulation. Within Manchester, the Lab reported on the low data availability and integrity via the existing CityVerve legacy city data platform and supplementary data sources. A collaborative approach exploring new use cases involving multiple MCC service teams identified barriers and opportunities for data from connected technologies towards greater agility and responsiveness in local governance. MCC’s Principal Resource and Programmes Officer has attested that CPU-Lab played a direct role in MCC committing to and commissioning the new Manchester Digital Strategy (Creating an Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Smart City): ‘Since the end of the project we’re further exploring the idea that decision making can be better informed by better data. The work with Ulysses identified the digital schema that could work and created awareness raising amongst our client base, which were council employees and staff. In September 2019 towards the end of Synchronicity we had a workshop for 40 stakeholders, mostly from the city council. 18 months before no one had wanted to attend, but now people felt that they wanted to be part of it. The ongoing engagement with Lab over the previous 2 years was key to this shift’ [B]. In the most recent annual report published by the council State of the City (2019), CPU research has been acknowledged for its current and projected wider impact on the new Manchester Digital Strategy and attraction of additional IoT funding [C].

Embedding IoT data in smart city mobility planning towards more sustainable journey choices: Located in Manchester, CityVerve was one of three Innovate UK funded Smart City demonstrators. In a R&D space dominated by technology providers, the Lab adopted a people-centric approach to prototyping the ‘Green Travel Planning’ web application to demonstrate the potential use of close to real-time ICT data to enable sustainable travel choices. Focussing on understanding user behaviours, an analysis of existing applications informed the development of an innovative new travel planning application highlighting the environmental implications of travel choices. The innovative digital interface also allowed the collection of data to inform infrastructure and mobility service planning within the city. The findings were published in seven reports and a short film demonstrating functionality [D]. Key insights were disseminated through a series of incremental round tables with MCC, TfGM and technology consortium partners, before being publicly released for the benefit of local authorities and SME’s working with ICT. MCC’s Principal Resource and Programmes Officer has attested that the project ‘makes people think about what a sustainable journey is, taking into account the human complexity involved, and the data gathered can also be used in a very real way to inform planning decisions’ [B].

Integrating Connected Autonomous Vehicles into TfGM's Future Mobility Strategy: Through collaboration with multiple industry and implementation stakeholders as part of the Synergy project, the Lab used computational modelling to shape understandings of the potential of CAV services to augment or replace other motorised public transport services. This has included contributing to GM’s CAV Policies and Strategy in support of GM’s 2038 Net Zero ambition, with implications for the 6 million daily trips undertaken in the city region. The Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) commissioned the report ‘Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The Opportunity in Greater Manchester’ [E], into which the Lab had direct input, marking a turning point in future mobility strategic planning by identifying use cases for CAV deployment in Greater Manchester. The report has resulted in the policy document ‘A Principles-Based Strategy for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles in Greater Manchester’ produced by the TfGM policy team, on which again the Lab was directly consulted [F]. The Lab are formally acknowledged in both the report and the policy document and continue to be involved as a core partner with TfGM in co-producing and monitoring objectives for GMs CAV policies. TfGM have acknowledged the Lab for ‘support in shaping TfGM’s CAV Agenda in the last two years through your involvement on the Synergy project [you] have helped in making GM’s 2040 Transport Strategy more innovative and have placed Manchester high in the ranks on future mobility’ [G]. Wider reach has been achieved through the agenda-setting ‘Future Mobility Symposium 2020’ at Manchester Met which brought together 60 future mobility service stakeholders (including the Manchester Airport Group, TfGM (co-organiser), Connected Places Catapult, Law Commission, Atkins, Oxfordshire County Council, Highways England, Innovate UK, RIBA and Jacobs) to co-develop a forward-looking agenda and public report [H].

Guiding the sustainability agenda of Manchester’s largest regeneration project: Led by Hyde and Sengupta, CPU-Ai is a cutting-edge research-led Atelier on the two-year MArch Master of Architecture programme informed directly by the Labs research expertise. CPU-Ai employs design science to develop theoretical approaches and computational tools for the design, management, governance and understanding of future cities. Since 2018, ca.60 students in CPU-Ai have engaged with the planners in The Northern Gateway (NG) Strategic Regeneration Framework (SRF), a major (150ha) regeneration and development programme aiming to deliver 15,000 new homes in NE Manchester. The 25-year development is on the scale of a new town incorporating transport, green and wider place based social and community infrastructure. The Northern Gateway Strategy and Co-ordination Lead acknowledges the positive impact of working with CPU-Ai on their ongoing sustainability policy in four key areas: 1) Urban design in the form of ‘insight into [impact of] urban design strategies for the Northern Gateway’; 2) Raised awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through ‘the research which mapped out the UN-SDG’s against our strategic ambitions. We now acknowledge that a lot of our work should engage with these goals’; 3) The use of scientific methods for innovation in design noting ‘The CPU complexity and design science design methods for futures helps us change and refine our thinking about the built environment. We are behind the curve of innovation, and we work with you to inform our approaches’; and 4) Changed strategic policy as demonstrated in ‘The SRF – is now moving to a greater level of detail. We have taken some of your student-led research to inform how that is going to come forward, for example, on the green infrastructure, climate resilience, biodiversity, water retention, etc. We have also been influenced by your design options to develop more detailed strategies and plans around transport and movement related to locations and routing of certain options for transport. These have been incorporated into multiple policies such as Sandhills Metrolink options appraisal by TfGM and MCC, Rochdale Road design options by TfGM and ARUP and MCC and Green Infrastructure issues within the City River Park Vision document with Planet. This will impact on 35,000 people in the regeneration area’ [L].

New forms of technology-driven architectural design practice: The cutting-edge CPU-Ai Atelier curriculum combines design acumen with the development of bespoke computational tools to address complex problems through systems thinking. This combination of design skills and systemic thinking has resulted in a highly innovative teaching agenda ( #architectsthatcode). The desirability of CPU-Ai graduates has resulted in high-demand in R&D roles prioritising the development of new approaches for an evolving profession. These include the UK Building Information Modelling (BIM) leader Bryden Wood, who state ‘your graduates have a direct impact on our ways of working in the office and especially in our specialist CT [Creative Technologies] team by bringing in the latest digital workflows. Your graduates learn to code and expand their design approaches beyond traditional software and form based digital design. They are aware of interdisciplinary approaches and requirements for design based on a broad theoretical familiarity. The capacity to grow the CT team at Bryden Wood was partially due to the existing knowledge and skills of CPU-Lab graduates’ [I] and the largest global architecture practice Gensler who state that the CPU-Lab graduate employed there ‘introduced us to new computational tools for the understanding the performance of the building envelope of a project which has just recently gained planning approval. This is a high-profile project with very ambitious energy targets. These targets have been achievable partially due to the use of these new tools that [the CPU-Lab graduate] brought with him’ [J]. The ongoing change in attitudes, processes and practice is reflected nationally in industry and RIBA as attested to by its President Alan Jones, who states ‘at CPU-Lab you are developing new methods with your students based on functionality and evidence by expanding their education into areas of computer science, data analysis and urban simulation. The CPU design science-based approach is playing an important part in the changing trajectory of the profession’ [K].

Establishment of the ‘neighbourhood approach’

Using innovative participative design-research, PHASE has introduced and defined the concept of an ‘Age-Friendly Neighbourhood’ (AFN), which translates the WHO Age-Friendly City principles into a place-based, research-led model for local change. This conceptual definition has been produced through creation of methodologies for, and delivery of, a series of age-friendly programmes at a neighbourhood level, notably in the Age-Friendly Old Moat (AFOM) and Manchester Age-Friendly Neighbourhood (MAFN) projects. The ‘age-friendly neighbourhood’ approach has been a key factor in Greater Manchester being awarded Age-Friendly status in 2017, with ‘age-friendly neighbourhoods’ a central pillar of their delivery plan [A], as further demonstrated through the use of the AFOM pilot as the template for a five-year GBP10,200,000 programme (Ambition for Ageing - AfA) across 24 neighbourhoods in the city-region. Manchester School or Architecture led five of these areas directly and provided training on participatory action planning methodologies for the seven other local delivery partners. Over 20,000 older people have contributed to the AfA programme since 2016, which has led to over 1,413 local projects (total value GBP2,100,000) being funded [B].

Improved quality of life for older residents

The AFN projects have demonstrated improvements in older residents’ well-being and increased levels of social and civic participation. Since completion of the AFOM research, project partner Southway Housing Trust invested GBP730,000 on delivering the age-friendly action plan co-created with local residents alongside related responses such as 277 property refurbishments and 54 new build age-friendly houses. The number of residents who consider their neighbourhood to be age-friendly has increased from 55% to 80% while the number of older people who report feeling lonely or socially isolated has decreased from 21% to 10% as a result of AFOM [C]. MAFN expanded the co-production methodologies pioneered by PHASE across five wards in Manchester. Between 2016-2019, PHASE led over 200 design-research activities with 1,200 individuals and over 6,000 instances of resident participation. MAFN supported each neighbourhood to develop a self-sustaining, independent resident-led multi-stakeholder partnership involving community groups, councillors, council, health and social care services, statutory authorities and the voluntary sector [C]. Each of these co-produced a local neighbourhood action plan and altogether the neighbourhoods co-designed over 150 small projects that address social isolation amongst older people, distributing over GBP356,000 of funding to local initiatives led by older residents.

Local, regional and national policy and practice

Age-Friendly Old Moat is an inspirational case study for the Mayoral Challenge on Age-Friendly Neighbourhoods, launched in 2019 by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham ‘to identify best practice work on ageing within the city-region'. The 2017 GMCA report ‘The Future of Ageing in Greater Manchester’ sets out the city-region’s ambitions for anchoring age-friendliness as a core principle in the region’s policies, citing the AFOM project as a model that should be replicated. This policy position was subsequently integrated into the Greater Manchester Strategy [D], adopted by the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester. The policy’s delivery mechanism, the ‘Ageing in Place Programme’, which was launched in 2019, looks to establish age-friendly neighbourhoods across 12 districts within the city-region, with a total older population of 151,000 residents. White and Hammond sit on the academic advisory group for the ‘Ageing in Place Programme’. The collaboration with Age-Friendly Manchester (Manchester City Council) and the GM Ageing Hub (Greater Manchester Combined Authority) has significantly shaped strategy, policy and public services within Greater Manchester. This has included two secondments to the GM Ageing Hub at GMCA to develop research-led policy documents, notably supplementary guidance on ageing as part of the forthcoming GM Spatial Framework, which is the 20-year development plan for the city region . These secondments were enabled by White being awarded the Manchester Met ‘Metropolis’ Chancellor’s fellowship. There are 907,000 people aged over 50 in Greater Manchester directly affected by the GM Ageing Hub, regarded by WHO as a best-practice example for ageing policy and practice.

The GM Ageing Hub’s 2018 strategy acknowledges Manchester Met as a key partner, and Paul McGarry, Assistant Director at GMCA, explains how working with PHASE ‘... led us to adopt a focus on creating ‘age-friendly neighbourhoods’... [as] a core feature of the Greater Manchester Ageing Strategy, and has been pivotal in a series of delivery programme such as Ambition for Ageing, the GM Mayoral Challenge on Age-Friendly Neighbourhoods and the Ageing in Place Programme’. He adds that ‘Working with PHASE has allowed us to rethink our approach to ageing and the built environment, and the role GMCA has in shaping it... showing how local government, commercial and academic collaboration can take a lead in shaping the market around issues of ageing and inclusion.’ [E]. The Rightsizing and Rightplace projects developed to address specific knowledge gaps related to planning for older people around place as identified by the ageing, housing and research teams at GMCA. Both were funded by The Centre for Ageing Better, which has a memorandum of understanding with GMCA to support policy-engaged research. In the foreword to the Rightsizing report, GM Mayor Andy Burnham explicitly recognises that the GMCA’s partnership with PHASE ‘has helped position Greater Manchester as world-leaders when it comes to research on ageing [urging] policymakers across the UK to capitalise on this expertise we have available’. Findings of this research have subsequently been integrated into GM Housing Strategy and GM Spatial Framework [F] and nationally promoted by the Centre for Ageing Better. Hammond and White’s age-friendly housing research has been cited by the International Longevity Centre as a key strength of GM’s ageing approach, highlighting the economic opportunities for GM from better responding to the housing needs of older people [G]. Their age-friendly neighbourhood projects are also cited in a report from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POSTNote) about ‘Creating Age-Friendly Cities’ . The All-Party Parliamentary Group in Social Inclusion report ‘Healing the Generational Divide’ highlighted the integration of research and teaching within Manchester School of Architecture as best practice for exploring issues of ageing and inclusion. The report recommends: “All schools of architecture and architectural practices throughout the UK should be encouraged and supported to explore how living spaces can be designed to promote intergenerational connection.” [H]. More recently PHASE is working alongside Design Council, Microsoft, Cisco, Pozzoni Architects, Health Innovation Manchester and GMCA to create a commercial age-friendly design agency, funded by the UKRI Healthy Ageing Trailblazer programme. The aim of this programme is to scale up innovation enabled by PHASE’s age-friendly research and apply it to a range of live development projects in 2021-2025.

Global policy and practitioner influence

The strength of Greater Manchester’s academic-policy integration on ageing, housing and neighbourhoods is internationally recognised. It contributed to Greater Manchester’s age-friendly programme being awarded the maximum 4* status from the EU-led European Innovation Partnership on Active and Health Ageing and was cited as best practice by the Finnish government who recommended adopting the same approach in its national policy [I]. In their 10-year review the World Health Organisation notes in relation to Manchester’s ageing programme that ‘through partnerships with a local university older people in Manchester have also played an active role as co-researchers investigating and improving the “age- friendliness” of their communities’. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) includes Age Friendly Old Moat as part of an international review of ageing and urbanism [J]. White and Hammond have shared their approach with international delegations from USA, Japan, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. White provided the keynote address at the launch of Age-Friendly Gothenburg in 2017. White and Hammond have joined Foreign Office policy and research delegations to Wuhan, China, and Montpellier, France. PHASE research is included as a case study in the internationally recognised industry-focused reports series ‘Cities Alive’ by Arup and in various RIBA publications, including ‘The Alternative Age-Friendly Handbook’, ‘Age-Friendly Housing: Future design for older people’ and ‘A Home for the Ages’ [K].

Impact on national policy

The research has enabled sector and artist conversations, and the creation of a non-hierarchical model of infrastructure support for artists that is unique in being artist-led on a national basis. Ravetz’s work has also had a direct impact on strategy change for Arts Council England. The 2013 report ‘Analysing Artists’ Continual Professional Development (CPD)’ and the 2015 report ‘Validation Beyond the Gallery’ are both cited in ACE’s ‘Next ten-year strategy: Evidence Review’ by Britain Thinks (2018), which underpinned ACE’s revised ten-year strategy (2020-2030). The Britain Thinks review refers directly to Ravetz’s research in its section on how to evaluate quality: ‘There is also a difficulty for visual artists with regards to the influence of commercialism on ideas of quality. Ravetz and Wright (2015) explore systems of validation for visual artists working outside of the gallery system, arguing that many artists do not accept the traditional routes to validation of the quality of their work – specifically gallery commissions’. The Britain Thinks authors end this section of their review with a direct quotation from ‘Validation Beyond the Gallery’: “the difference in values and ways of working between this field and gallery culture demands a new and different structure of validation, one based on in-depth consultation with artists, participants, producers and commissioners”. ACE Director of Research, Andrew Mowlah, testifies that: “Professor Ravetz research ‘ Analysing Artists’ Continual Development in Greater Manchester: towards an integrated approach for talent development’, played a significant role in helping ACE think about what the most significant opportunities for talent development among artists are from their perspective […] The future success of the cultural sector depends on being able to draw on a talent pool that reflects society as a whole and is much wider and deeper than it is now. Professor Ravetz’s research influenced the way in which ACE will encourage the organisations we invest in to support and adopt new and emerging talent, to drive artist collaboration and to encourage learning at all levels” [A].

Impact on organisational practice and resilience

Ravetz’s 2013 report equipped Castlefield Gallery with a new typology of development activities that supported their developing a USP for artist development, and provided ways to communicate the value of this work to cultural partners and funders. In 2015, the gallery re-gained core ACE funding of GBP210,000, which had been lost in 2011. Both Castlefield Gallery and ACE have testified that the reinstatement of funding was a direct result of Ravetz’ research . The reinstatement of ACE funding allowed Castlefield Gallery to grow its associate programme, as reflected in its increased membership and income . The funding also gave it greater visibility and credibility as a leader in talent development in Manchester and across the UK . The research directly underpins Castlefield Gallery’s and Bluecoat Gallery’s 2020 artist development programme PIVOT: an 18-month development programme for mid-career artists living and working in North West England [B].

The research enabled the gallery to share its new approach to artists’ development with other small organisations in Manchester, such as the disability-focussed Venture Arts. Venture Arts have credited Ravetz’s research with helping them to build networks and gain resilience and funding: “Amanda’s research on artists’ development has informed our relationship with Castlefield Gallery and the way it thinks and works with artists, regardless of disability. Amanda’s work shaped our partnership with CG and facilitated connections with similar organisations across Manchester, such as Islington Mill, Manifest Arts and Rogue Artists’ Studio […] the partnership with Castlefield Gallery and Amanda’s research along with the PhD has also been a factor in Venture Arts becoming a National Portfolio Organisation.” [C].

Ravetz’s work with visual art charity, Portraits of Recovery (PORe), has been credited by their executive as having “helped us to develop a credible, acclaimed portfolio of work. Amanda’s academic reputation, research and future working is referenced in our successful funding bid to Arts Council England’s Elevate programme.” [D]. PORe collaborated with Ravetz on the Wonderland project (2016) and My Recoverist Family (2017). My Recoverist Family screened at REEL Recovery Film Festival, Los Angeles and New York; at Whitworth Art Gallery, with the panel including writer, Will Self; at Islington Mill Art Academy; at the ESRC Social Science Festival, Manchester and at the Niamos Centre in Hulme, Manchester. Between 2016 and 2020 Wonderland was viewed over 5,682 times. PORe have attested that the partnership has helped them to gain new networks and organisational resilience, which has directly contributed to their ongoing sustainability [D].

Ravetz’s creation of a collaborative PhD with grassroots arts organisation, Islington Mill, in Salford is credited by Director, Maurice Carlin, as directly contributing to the organisation’s resilience by allowing the development of their public programme: “The GBP80,000 that Amanda’s work has helped us to raise is employing our new full time General Manager and a part-time Projects Coordinator. They’re the first two members of the new charity that we’ve formed called Islington Mill Foundation. They’re going to help us to restart our public programme […] We will expand our residency programme. The funding is going to be used to build a large new residency space up in the top 2 floors which will be big enough for 24 artists to stay in. All these impacts can be traced back to the PhD that Amanda initiated.” Ravetz’s ongoing consultative work with Islington Mill is further credited by Carlin as contributing directly to their securing of GBP800,000 of Heritage Lottery Funding, an essential part of a £2.5 million bid to save Islington Mill’s future existence: “In terms of tangible outputs from Amanda’s contributions, we received GBP800,000 worth of National Lottery Heritage funding in part as a result of her work with us and her contribution to that process. I would say she’s one of the key people in this city whose voice is very much in our minds when we’re thinking about our future.” Importantly for Carlin, it was Ravetz’s research expertise in artist-led validation that allowed the Heritage Lottery Funding (HLF) bid to be, not only successful, but successful on the organisation’s own terms: “Amanda has a really good sense of why there’s something special here. Why there’s something artist-led about this place that means it can hold ambiguities, uncertainties and question marks and insist on the value of those things. When you’re in a position like we were, where we were desperate to get this funding, you’ll almost do anything. It was really useful to have people like Amanda there saying ‘No, you know what, this is what I think the value of this is and this is what you can insist on’, this is the value that artist-led brings” [E].

Ravetz’s research insights into the separation of the mainstream arts sector and those working outside the paradigm of the art market have also impacted on the funding, visibility and success of Axisweb. The KTP with Axisweb is credited with helping them to increase their membership threefold and move from a 10% to a 100% self-generated business income model. The partnership is known to have led to a minimum of 51 artist commissions; 45,343 engagements (audiences, participants, attendees, etc.); 2,087 tangible outputs (zines, events, artworks etc.) and GBP60,786 in income generated. 15K of this funding has been used by Axis to establish the Social Art Library, the idea for which derived directly from Ravetz’s 2015 research and the KTP partnership. The report on the KTP ( From Network to Meshwork) has influenced crafts social practice, and is cited under the Useful Resources section of the AHRC-funded publication Stitching Together Good Practice Guide. Independent evaluation found that the KTP can be credited for 60% of Axisweb’s organisational sustainability and everything that ensued from that, including increased membership from 1,500 to 5,000+; new and expanded non-funder-based income streams; new support for socially-engaged artists; and a more diverse range of activity for members [F].

Impact on artists

In terms of the significance and reach of this impact for Axis’ members, those involved in the research experienced an increased range of benefits from their membership, including raised profile, quality assurance for grant applications, and facilitated access to exhibition and studio space. They formed new networks with other artists, practitioners and commissioners; gained fresh perspectives through sharing information; and became less isolated, which caused them to feel validated, visible, recognised and credible. Artists commissioned as part of the action research have experienced further impacts, including: 12 additional artist commissions; 9,500 additional artist engagements; and 1,978 outputs, including zines, events, networks, films and fora. These activities generated a minimum GBP32,500 in further commissions, grants and crowdfunding. In surveys, Axisweb members remark that, whereas previously, Axisweb functioned mainly as an online platform, in the past five years (since the organisation’s change of direction and Ravetz’s consultancy work with them) more support is available to socially-engaged artists and a more diverse programme is on offer, including events and commissions. The KTP contributed to an average 87% of the successful outcomes and longer-term impacts that artists identified from their involvement in the research as commissioned artists or attendees/participants of the commissioned activities. This percentage calculates as GBP170,000 of income across all the commissioned artists. [F].

The research team’s publication, Social Work? Open, a new journal for socially-engaged artists and the first of its kind in the UK, commissioned 16 artists (including long and short form) plus one artist commission. 400 hard copies were distributed (including 350 sold); 1,400+ were read online and 450 were downloaded. [G]. Artists recognised and welcomed the unique place that the experiences and conversations arising from the research held in the sector, commenting on the non-hierarchical approach to the research as its unique characteristic, with one participant commenting: “I feel strongly socially engaged art is the end of the radar, it’s not been high profile. This programme was about validation and it’s been a hard journey to achieve any validation – we’re very invisible in many ways. I think it [the KTP] is unique in that the core values are quite different from anything else that’s happening. The non-hierarchical, non-judgemental, non-led. People can come up with an idea and make it happen. The artists are the heart of everything rather than the administration” [F].

Legacy impacts on the global discipline of arts and health

In the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing on Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing (2018), which was launched at Manchester Met to celebrate 30 years of its Arts for Health research group, Manchester is described as “the wellspring of the international Arts for Health movement” and the group is identified as being instrumental to the emergence of a global Arts for Health movement. [A]. Demonstrating the group’s ongoing influence on international policy, and recording the application of their research in arts and health practice in Ireland and other parts of the world, their work is cited by WHO in their scoping review: ‘What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being?’ (2019), which has been downloaded over 23,000 times. [B].

In 2015, Wellcome Collection acquired the Arts for Health archives as a major national resource, comprising 179 transfer boxes of paper records, approximately 100 artworks, and a large quantity of audio-visual and digital material. Jenny Haynes (Head of Collections and Research, Wellcome Collection) has attested to both the intrinsic research value of the collection and the effect of this unique acquisition on curatorial and organisational practice, stating that “on the back of this acquisition we were able to secure a significant amount of internal project funding to catalogue and conserve the collections […] Acquiring these collections helped to mark a significant moment of change for us in terms of an expansion of our collecting focus into new areas which are in the same broad area of an intersection between art and health. We now having a growing collection of zines, artists books and art from therapeutic settings and have also begun to commission art for the collections. The material we acquired from MMU and the conversations we had with key contacts there during the process definitely helped us to build our confidence and push forward our thinking in these areas.” [C].

De-stigmatising substance use and promoting recovery

The report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing acknowledges, in particular, the impact of Parkinson’s A Recoverist Manifesto (2014) on changing perceptions of substance use and recovery, as well as the role of art as a vehicle for such change: through “building on ideas in the USA Bill of Recovery Rights, a shared statement – The Recoverist Manifesto – was developed, which attempted to dispel the myths associated with substance misuse, reframing addiction as a cultural issue and recovery as a civil rights concern.” [A]. The film version of A Recoverist Manifesto (Part one) has been viewed more than 1,765 times. Testimonial from the national Scottish Recovery Consortium speaks to the value of ‘Recoverism’ as a conceptual framework, stating that the identification with being ‘Recoverist’ has “become part of the national discourse” and that “Clive’s work has therefore had not only a huge impact on all we are doing in Scotland but the way that we do it.” [D].

Ravetz’s work on recovery as a political and human rights issue builds directly on Parkinson’s, destigmatising perceptions of substance use, aiding recovery, and mobilising art as a medium for such change. Her projects: Wonderland (2016) and My Recoverist Family (2017), were developed in partnership with visual art charity, Portraits of Recovery (PORe). Participants in both projects attested to the positive emotional and behavioural impact the work had on them: “ Wonderland was the first time we had looked at ourselves with anything other than society’s eyes. It was about not being ashamed. When we looked at ourselves, we found we were not horrible, twisted monsters. It gave us the courage to do things we haven’t done before.” [E]. My Recoverist Family screened at REEL Recovery Film Festival, Los Angeles and New York; at Whitworth Art Gallery, with the panel including writer Will Self; at Islington Mill Art Academy; at the ESRC Social Science Festival, Manchester: and at the Niamos Centre in Hulme, Manchester. A participant said: “Wearing the costumes, getting to know one another, sharing true-life experience with each other and being that open, honest and trusting was amazing. It was very freeing”… “Looking at the film now, I’ve completely changed...the film was instrumental in that change. It was transformative.” At the Whitworth premiere (audience of 150) Will Self commented: “One of the lovely things about the film was it showed that socialisation is at the core of recovery […] The spontaneity and the involvement of the camera in it in a very non-judgemental and non-narrative way. I found it very moving.” [E]. Between 2016 and 2020 Wonderland was viewed over 5,682 times. In January 2020 My Recoverist Family was one of four films selected as part of Professor Ali Roy’s inaugural lecture on ‘Recovery Stories in Art and Social Research’ at the University of Central Lancashire, attended by an audience of 80 people [E].

Increasing global understanding of dementia

Burke’s cross-disciplinary work on dementia has influenced medical professionals, such as Dr Michael Chapman, director of palliative care at Canberra Hospital and Health Services, who notes that the “work of Dr Lucy Burke has helped me to understand, we have additional tools at our disposal, additional lights and lenses, that can aid in responding to the challenges posed by dementia.” [F]. Burke’s essay ‘Imagining a future without dementia: fictions of regeneration and the crises of work and sustainability’ is referenced in chapter 3.7 of the World Alzheimer’s Report 2019. [G]. Parkinson’s Dementia and Imagination handbook (2017) has shaped artists’ practices across the UK and internationally. Parkinson has delivered training events for over 300 artists, educators and other participants in Australia, Lithuania, Japan and the USA. Three films produced by Parkinson, as part of the Dementia and Imagination project, which explore diverse shared experiences of dementia ( The Grand Tour), and personal narratives of those living with the condition ( On Beauty; On Belonging), were screened across a range of venues, including Wellcome Collection, the National Gallery of Lithuania, and MoMA, New York. Carrie McGee, Assistant Director, Community and Access Programs at MoMA, attested to their power: “The short films you have created so beautifully capture and illustrate what no research study ever could--that the emotional acuity and capacity for appreciating beauty that define the finest aspects of the human experience are alive and well in those living with dementia. I believe these films hold great potential in terms of helping society (policy makers, doctors, family members, care professionals) recognize the full humanity of individuals with dementia.” [H].

Empowering the voices of disabled people

Burke’s expertise in community partnership-working resulted in her being commissioned as leader of Programme Development for the Disability strand of the Manchester-based Sick! Festival 2019, and the associated public art project Graphic Encounters. This project focused on the role of the arts in disability activism, challenging exclusion and negative societal attitudes towards disability. Working with Heathlands Village (Federation of Jewish Services), the LGBT Foundation, and the self-advocacy group, Together All Are Able, Graphic Encounters explores the lives of four women living with disability, illness and long-term impairments. The women’s stories were visualised by four international artists through a series of compelling posters that were shown across Greater Manchester's Metrolink network, and seen by an estimated 890,000 people across the region. [I]. Tim Harrison, Director of Sick! Festival states: “Since we formed, there have only been a handful of people who have had a major impact on SICK!Fest. Lucy is one of these. She has had an impact on how we think about things. She has introduced a nuance, subtlety and depth to how we approach issues. Her integrity and depth of understanding of the subject shaped our 2019 programme and has continued to inform our awareness.” [I]. Burke has continued her work with Sick! Festival through the creation of ‘4OFUS’: four video-cast conversations about the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of people facing particular challenges with access to health and social care, dealing with isolation and loneliness, and providing support for the dying and bereaved. The opportunity to share experiences of lockdown through 4OFUS was described as “incredibly cathartic” by Richard Currie, a disabled contributor. He noted that, “I feel that the project demonstrated how in times of social isolation we can use the platform of social media to bring people together to share their experiences. Taking part in this project it reinforces I am not alone.” [J].

Changing the language of pain

Bullo’s project Language of Endometriosis has changed the diagnosis, discussion and treatment of the condition. 100% of women surveyed on the impact of the project’s two art workshops said these had either “significantly” or “greatly” helped them to communicate their experience of endometriosis pain. Participants also asserted that the workshops had helped them to visualise their pain and translate it into a tangible, more articulate, format; that they now found themselves equipped with a better vocabulary to discuss physical discomfort; and that the workshops offered a “therapeutic release.” [K]. Bullo was invited by theatre director and author, Kailey McGowan, to discuss the effects of endometriosis on relationships. She confirmed that Bullo’s research had informed the script of her play, particularly the theatrical representation of consultation scenes where patients described their symptoms to doctors [K]. Bullo was also interviewed by BBC Radio World Service Health Check Programme, and her work was recommended in The Guardian on 28/10/20 in a letter from University of Sheffield researchers in the field. [K].

Ctrafting the Future has promoted the cultural, social and economic revival of indigenous craft practices and the empowerment of their practitioners, most significantly with the Warli painting community in Maharashtra, and with weaving communities in Gujarat and Nan Province, Thailand.

Warli painting is a form of tribal art practised by the tribal people from the North Sahyadri Range in Maharashtra, India. Building upon networks formed during the HAT project, Magee’s cultural collaboration with Warli painters was consolidated through the filming of Warli (2013), which focussed on the Warli master painter, Jivya Soma Mashe, and laid the groundwork for the Heart:Beat project . The objective of the Heart:Beat residency (2017) was to assess the cultural significance, and address the sustainability, of a traditional but marginalised craft practice, currently threatened by India’s rapid globalisation, industrialisation and rural depopulation. Heart:Beat culminated in an exhibition and installation that attracted an audience of over 1,000 people, including 350 schoolchildren who participated in the event, many from the local Warli community, with others coming from as far afield as Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur [A]. An initial craft-mapping exercise conducted by researchers from CEPT University in Ahmedabad had established the fragility of this marginal cultural practice, identifying a core cohort of only 22 Warli painters in Thane Province. In addressing this, the residency exhibition brought together the wider creative community for the first time, and a further 28 painters were identified through their participation in the open exhibition, raising the profile of their practice. The exhibition also brought to light a small but significant number of female Warli painters returning to the practice, which had become dominated by men in recent years. Warli painter Ramesh Hengadi, a participant in both the Hat Project and Heart:Beat, commented on how these projects had initiated collaborative curatorial partnerships, which have increased the visibility and financial viability of Warli painting, creating new networks and opportunities for young painters: “AYUSH (Adivasi Yuva Shakti) got connected to me and with other local Warli artists. AYUSH has been there as an organisation since 10-12 year, but they did not do paintings earlier. They were more into farming, due to the Heart Beat project now they got the idea about painting and take it as a production and spread it in the entire region as they already had a network […] I have been given a role in this project, that of a senior artist. I train young artists and also contribute to orders based production. AYUSH have opened a small gallery in Khabala village, towards Dhanu. They also have an office in Waghadi (near my in-laws’ place). I sometimes provide them my paintings. There are different coordinators within this organisation. It is a good project for wage based employment of young generation” [B].

For Heart:Beat, new paintings were commissioned from ten Warli artists, exploring the themes of modernisation, transition, and environmental and cultural sustainability, and these works were exhibited alongside those of the artists-in-residence. Hengadi commented on how the project had influenced and invigorated his creative practice: “I am more involved in bringing a life and soul to paintings. I am in search of old stories, that are in songs, I want to depict them as painting, Warli stories that have not been depicted in paintings before. I am giving birth to new paintings never done before” [B]. Further exhibitions of the work in Ahmedabad; Jaipur; Wellbeck; Stoke-on-Trent and Rochdale have introduced Warli painting to new audiences, numbering 34,794, stimulating cultural tourism across the sites of the touring exhibition, and attracting national and international visitors, whilst also supporting local economies and tourism in Maharashtra [C]. In 2018, the project was further disseminated in the form of an artist’s book, Heart:Beat, which was produced in a limited edition of 200 [D].

In Field to Fashion, Welsh developed environmentally-sustainable strategies, which focussed on the preservation of organic ‘old-world’ kala cotton grown by marginalised farmers in rural Gujarat, India, where production was being abandoned as the yarn diminished in demand. There was an identified need to stimulate an Indian market for locally-grown cotton without the pressures of external influences. Field to Fashion instigated a collaborative international design process with an Indian master weaver, which exposed new cultural products to new international audiences. Today, kala cotton products have become successfully re-established on the international wholesale and retail markets. The Director of NGO Khamir stated: “Alison Welsh has been a part of the success story of kala cotton … since its early inception in 2013. Alison worked with Khamir, the organization that developed the kala cotton as a farm-to-fabric story at a time when it was just being introduced and tested in the market […] Alison saw the potential right away and decided to work closely with Shamjibhai Vishram Siju […] to develop garments and product possibilities.[…] This was an important early step that led to the story of kala cotton being broadcast outside of Kutch and India […] Since 2013, kala cotton has truly become a dynamic co-creating ecosystem where many components have engaged and interacted with one another to bring about a transformation in just 7-8 years. Many weavers who had left their traditional occupation for factory jobs, have actually returned back to the fold. And most importantly, the young weavers see hope for their future and their craft. In this journey, Alison and other designers have played an important role to give it not only the initial push but also to keep touching base, whenever required, with a legacy that has now taken a life of its own.”’ [E].

Similarly, the Tai Lue Weavers project (2018) promoted a sustained engagement with weaving villages in Nan Province, Thailand, many of which were also on the brink of abandoning their cultural heritage, having adopted chemical dyes and synthetic yarns without great commercial success. The project re-introduced eco-friendly practices into the cotton-growing, spinning, dyeing, weaving and garment construction stages of the Tai Lue weaving tradition, and led to the co-design and co-production of new garment ranges using handwoven Tai Lue fabrics. Some of these ranges were co-created with the weavers themselves to develop contemporary garments that demonstrated the design possibilities of traditional Tai Lue weaving. Welsh and Chadprajong-Smith worked closely with the leaders of three community enterprises, representing 52 women in Tai Lue province. Workshops taught both hard and soft skills, including pattern-cutting, garment construction, design and colour workshops, and organic dyeing techniques [F]. The project also brought in young Thai designers and entrepreneurs to collaborate in the creation and marketing of new textile products. The workshops attracted a total of 58 participants, who commented on how the workshops had changed their practice. Thanom Teekawong, a farmer, weaver and Head of Ban Donchai Weaving Community Enterprise, confirmed that: “There is for sure opportunity. The entire group has benefited. They got an opportunity to upgrade their skills, design process, shop and display arrangement. We also got to go on study trips. We learnt pattern making. We have learnt so many things” [F].

The project re-ignited the weavers’ passion for their weaving heritage and demonstrated its economic potential for contemporary textiles businesses. Jiraphat Changlek, a weaver, tailor and store manager at Ban Donchai observed, “We see the opportunity to make ready-to-wear garments. We adapt traditional patterns and make them more contemporary... We see business opportunities and new markets. We have more orders of textiles. Many customers from other districts order natural colour dyed textiles” [G]. Jiraphat also states that the weavers are gaining a higher price for their products, “We earn more than we did before. … Before a shirt that was normal shirt was THB800-850, now with added hand-weaving and hand-stitching details, the price is THB1,200-1,500 depending on the pattern” [G].

Furthermore, the project has elevated the weavers’ profile, nationally and internationally, through conferences, publications, exhibitions, festivals and online presence. Since her interview, conducted by the Tai Lue project media partner, The Cloud Magazine, five television programmes have focused on the success of Phaeo Phafai’s business (with a total of 20,843 views on YouTube). “The situation of our community has changed. Because our products are better, and we could sell for higher price. So, we have more resources to hire more people to work with us and they earn good income and more people join our network” [G].

An audience of more than 100,000 visitors attended Chiang Mai Design Week, where the Tai Lue garments were exhibited in December 2018 [H]. Andrew Glass, Director of British Council, Thailand, stated: “Through her design-thinking workshops as well as her advice given to artisans individually and as a group, Alison enabled the artisans to have a better understanding about the design process. Artisans are now able to see that design is part of the making process and can incorporate new ideas into the design of new products. This includes working on colour combination, natural dyes, and shop front displays, which help improve the design as well as brand images and marketing, which were new concepts to them. Alison's approach to design and making allows artisans to appreciate and build on their weaving traditions and hand skills. Her design work for the project focuses on bringing out the intricate details of the weaving combined with hand skills and slow making. Artisans then have an opportunity to see making in a different light and value their skills and heritage more. This also gives them a better understanding about the value of crafts and encourages them to continue with the crafts within their communities” [I]. A video film documenting the Tai Lue Project, and its impact on the women weavers of Nan Province, was premiered at a (COVID19 compliant) online event on 6^th October 2020. The event featured a panel discussion by project participants and key international stakeholders, and was attended by an international audience of designers, makers, researchers, cultural theorists and curators. The film was selected from over 1,000 entries from 60 countries for screening at the Fashion Film Festival Milano, 13-18 January 2021 [J].

Collectively, the innovative collaborative strategies initiated and tested in the field by Crafting the Future researchers have brought real-world benefits to the many indigenous crafts-makers and communities of practice with whom they have worked. This activity has generated new international attention for the unique and, often undervalued, skills of traditional artisans, and has created cultural sustainability in a time of accelerating urbanisation and global uncertainty.

Collectively, these five discrete but connected research projects have generated cultural impact on museum audiences, social impact on participant and community groups, and creative impact on public museums in the UK and in Belgium, during the Centenary of the First World War. Creative collaboration with public arts venues and organisations has been the central strategy in empowering co-researchers to engage in the re-imagining of public memorials and the co-creation of new commemorative artworks.

Resonance (2015) brought public attention to little-known social history collections of WWI memorabilia in the seven museums of the Staffordshire Museums Strategic Consortium and toured to each of the museums between March 2015 and April 2016, attracting 65,848 visitors. A total of 78 volunteers, recruited by the partner museums, participated in the co-creation of the ceramic artwork, Column, which was exhibited at every venue. As co-researchers, the participants gained new understandings of the contribution of their own relatives to the First World War, through individual research into their own family history. The creative application of this documentary information resulted in them becoming co-producers of a new artwork and gaining the satisfaction of seeing their work shown in the context of a commemorative public exhibition. Evaluation from the museums taking part in the touring exhibition indicated that the use of contemporary art as a strategy for reflection and interpretation increased visitor numbers and dwell time, unlocking archives and collections for new audiences [A]. Feedback from partner organisations highlighted the exhibition’s innovative methodology and presentation of new narratives; “The whole project has been immensely rewarding … completely different from the social or military historian developed exhibitions and displays which we would generally produce. The contrast in approaches is stimulating and imaginative and has made the museums look at their collections in a new and inspiring way, bringing fresh life to our core collections” [B].

Resonate (2015) engaged a mass audience as participants, inviting visitors to co-create a sculptural memorial to the soldiers of the North Staffordshire Regiment. It formed one of the major installations at the British Ceramics Biennial 2015 and generated visitor numbers of 39,225 over the eight weeks of the ceramic festival [C]. 1,217 of these visitors actively participated in the co-creation of the artwork. They attached hand-made ceramic forget-me-nots and individual messages of condolence and contemplation to a structure that supported a monumental clay head, based on the Inter-Allied Victory Medal of 1919. The flowers were made by an army of BCB volunteers, some of whom also assisted Dixon in the construction of the head sculpture, … ‘an eight-foot-high coil pot made from red Etruria marl, the clay on which Stoke-on-Trent sits’ [D]. Visitors commented on the emotive effect of the exhibition, and a raised awareness of the scale of the loss of life in the First World War: “We’re absolutely blown away, the statue just totally depicts the common man…the number of men that were killed, it’s unbelievable really.” [D].

The Lost Boys project (2016) also employed a model of shared making in the production of commemorative ceramic works. 120 students aged 14 to 18 from schools and colleges in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme were recruited as active co-researchers and co-creators [E]. Examining the death notices of underage soldiers, using the Staffordshire Sentinel microfiche library in the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire County Archives, gave them a unique insight into the experiences of First World War soldiers of their own age. The exhibition attracted 421 visitors, who: “…particularly enjoyed hearing the young people’s reflections on what they had gained from this project and their involvement in it.” [F]. Voices of War and Peace project coordinator, Dr Nicola Gauld, commented: “Professor Stephen Dixon’s Lost Boys project brought many different approaches, issues and insights to the wider VWAP project. The production of the ceramics, which included visualisations of the lost boy soldiers, had the effect of giving a sense of immediacy in terms of filling the gap between the past and present, and added a level of emotional engagement which documents cannot always deliver. In an age of visual literacy, the use of ceramics was an effective way of reaching out to larger publics. The experience of participating in the project helped to bring the past alive for the volunteers and enabled them to have an emotional connection with those young people from the past who had also volunteered but in a very different context.” [G].

Collaboration also underpinned Passchendaele: Mud and Memory (2017) where 108 museum visitors and volunteers participated in handling sessions and drawing workshops, using archive material sourced from the collections of the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917. Working with the excavated personal artefacts of fallen soldiers from both sides of the conflict, participants gained new insights into the brutal reality of the First World War. This hands-on engagement with the materiality of the battlefield resulted in the co-creation of a ceramic installation, in which the participants transfer-printed their poignant drawings in iron oxide onto facsimile army canteen plates. The exhibition attracted 3,598 visitors to the National Memorial Arboretum [H] and a second showing, at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 (2019), attracted an audience of 52,411, where visitors were … “surprised by the claywork” and “touched by the stories that were used”, with one visitor stating: “It is is a very moving memorial to all those who gave the most precious thing they possessed during the Great War. It is hard not to shed any tears.” [I]. In January 2020 the central artwork of the exhibition, a ceramic ‘everyman’ made from clay from the Passchendaele battlefield, was permanently installed in the Visitors Centre at Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in the world. The Tyne Cot Cemetery is the most visited site in the Flanders Fields region and has visitor numbers of approximately 350,000 each year. The Director of the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 also stated that the exhibition had changed the museum’s curatorial practice: “It was the first time we had organised this kind of art exhibition.The Mud and Memory exhibition made us think differently about using this space. We are currently planning other exhibitions in this gallery, as the adaptions we have made could be used for that as well. Having such exhibitions is another way to interact with other domains and to put the story of the First World War in another perspective. In this way, the exhibition had a huge impact on our exhibition policy.” [I].

The Refugee Tales project (2017-2019) involved 19 contemporary refugee and asylum seekers, from the Burslem Jubilee Group, as active co-producers. The refugees’ first-hand experience of displacement and marginalisation was expressed through storytelling and object-making workshops. These involved responding to historic artefacts relating to Belgian refugees in the First World War, and resulted in a ceramic installation, Medals for Peace, shown as part of the British Ceramics Biennial 2017, which attracted 60,000 visitors. Participants spoke about how the project had empowered them and given them a sense of agency as co-creators. “We felt that there is a support and understanding from the team working with us, they gave us the freedom to shape our ideas the way that we can, the way that we want. We were not told to do one, two, three, we were given an absolute flexibility in having this project and it made us, refugees and asylum seekers, feel that there is a role that we need to pay attention to. Nobody would understand the message unless we say it and unless we tell it. [J]. Group organisers attested to the positive effects of the project on the participants saying: “… it told a story which they could relate to from their past. These workshops are good for their mental health and wellbeing. They engage with people from all aspects of our community and they feel human and not a Home Office number.” [K].

The related artist film Breakable (2019) built on this success to engage with wider audiences as part of the AHRC Voices of War and Peace Festival. Screenings at MAC in Birmingham and at Manchester Met attracted a combined audience of 133. Audience members commented on how it changed their perceptions and understanding of the experience of refugees, both historical and contemporary. [L]

Building upon this significant body of collaborative research, Brook has generated demonstrable impact primarily in the following ways:

Statutory listing of buildings

Brook’s research has led him to make several successful applications for buildings and artworks to be listed. This represents a major achievement since statutory protection of post-war structures is notoriously difficult to achieve because the evidential threshold for their value tends to be set very high. For example, as part of the Manchester Modern project, Brook located and conducted primary research on a concrete sculptural wall in central Manchester and a private home in south Manchester. Historic England testify that ‘without Brook’s work these two previously unknown structures would have remained outside the strategic planning system and unprotected. The wall in particular has attracted considerable interest locally and online, a good example of the dissemination of his work into popular culture’ [A]. Founded on these successes and following his research into the work of Lancashire County Architect’s Department and Roger Booth, Brook made an application for the listing of a plastic classroom at Kennington School in Fulwood. The case study of the classroom, published on his website, is cited in both the C20 Society’s letter of support and the listing entry itself (2017) [B]. Historic England state ‘The work informed the listing of a school at Fulwood, Preston, and has provided the basis for future decisions on listing, which will be of great public benefit’ [A].

Protection of assets

As well as finding and protecting historic material by ensuring it is deposited in recognised archives, Brook has helped to open museum and archive collections to the public. The Greater Manchester County Record Office (now Archives+) were obliged to consider new access and cataloguing measures as part of their 2014 move to the newly refurbished Central Reference Library in Manchester. Brook worked with the Chief Archivist to advise on classification and access systems for records moved from the Town Hall into the archives, most notably the Building Control archives and the City Engineer’s micro-card collections. These extensive resources were live records that became historic collections by virtue of their survival, and the technical nature of the material required an expert adviser with industry experience. Larysa Bolton (Archives+) maintains that the digitisation of these materials has garnered thousands of online views, which would not have been possible without Brook’s leadership and expertise. Brook’s role as an expert adviser on access and dissemination with Archives+ continues [C]. Similarly, working closely with the Greater Manchester Museum of Transport, Brook displayed significant documents in exhibitions and opened up the institution’s rather hidden, but immensely rich, archival holdings to the wider public. Several architectural archive collections (including those of Cruickshank & Seward, Gordon Hodkinson, and Joe Blackburn) have also been preserved as a result of the Mainstream Modern project, as they were recovered by Brook and lodged with Manchester Metropolitan’s Special Collections. The families of Hodkinson and Blackburn are especially grateful for Brook’s intervention [D]. Hodkinson’s work was exhibited in Special Collections in 2019 and received 1,678 visitors, with comments including ‘As usual, beautifully displayed and easy to learn from and enjoy. Curator Richard Brook’s address was so full of enthusiasm and his manner could be said to be refreshing and beguiling!! Super exhibition’ [E]. The archives have already been used by artists (Sarah Hardacre) and others (Drawing Matter) to develop new work and to cross-reference with other holdings respectively [E,F]. One of the Special Collections curators has noted that ‘Richard’s work on the company archive and his relationships with the current owners of the archive resulted in our acquisition of a significant collection of photographs recording Cruickshank and Seward’s most important buildings. This archive has and will continue to be an important research resource within our collections’ [E].

Innovative digital outreach, recording and publishing

Brook has developed new digital modes of publication and dissemination, celebrated hitherto unknown buildings, realised unbuilt urban plans in virtual domains and reconstructed augmented-reality versions of buildings under threat. He developed the website www.mainstreammodern.co.uk (2014) with partner Geoff Bretherick of web developer Fablr. The website is a live and continuing project that enables Brook to share his primary fieldwork and visually rich secondary research material with the public. The case study buildings presented on the website reflect the expanding geography of Brook’s research, including examples from across the UK. To date, the site has had 33,000 unique visitors, over 100,000 hits with 25% of the traffic from outside the UK. It is regularly used as a reference resource by other scholars and aficionados. In Making Post-War Manchester, Brook and Tan made virtual environments built from unrealised masterplans from the 1960s and exhibited them publicly for two weeks in June 2016 – over 700 visitors roamed around 3D models of unbuilt 1960s mega-structures, using game controllers. The interdisciplinary project, involving architectural history, historical geography and computer science, resulted in an enduring legacy in the form of the website www.mpwm.msa.ac.uk. Visitors stated that ‘it brought back many happy memories’, that the ‘walk throughs [were] a great way to engage people’, and that the exhibition ‘should cause us to reflect – how will our current architectural developments be viewed in 50 years?’ [G]. The project’s success was one of the foundations for the 2017 AHRC/EPSRC award from the Immersive Experiences programme, which funded The Life of Buildings project and involved Archives+ as a key partner [C]. Working with other established partners (Fablr and The Modernist Society) and new collaborators (Oxford Archaeology North), Brook led a pioneering digital preservation project that engaged the community of Manchester Reform Synagogue in dialogue about their past, present and future. Rabbi Robyn Ashworth-Steen said that the research ‘reminded us of the history of our community’, ‘allowed older members of the community to commit to record their reflections of our past and our future’, ‘put to use histories we had collected ourselves’, and that she was ‘able to take the website with me on pastoral visits and shared the software with members who are housebound which provided a great deal of comfort’. The project allowed ‘building and sustaining our community’ in a time of transition, and the website record is a ‘resource that we cherish and will be available to our community for a time to come. Working with the research team headed by Richard [Brook] really energised us’ [H]. More than 100 people attended the launch of the project website and it has been accessed over 1800 times.

Recalibrating public perceptions of post-war building through the Modernist Society

Brook’s expertise was recognised by the fledgling Modernist Society at their constitution in 2009, which resulted in his appointment as formal advisor. He assists the Society with funding advice, project development and makes a regular contribution to their publishing and events programme. In this role he has collaborated in the delivery of books, articles, walking tours, presentations and exhibitions based on his research. The reach of the Modernist Society is significant and extends beyond the Chapter centres of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds and Croydon, with the largest congregations in the North West and in London. The Society has very healthy online audience figures (42,000 across networks, of which approximately 20% are from outside the UK) compared to similar heritage organisations. The Modernist Society have attested that ‘through partnership on a number of exhibitions, projects and publications, Richard’s academic research and rigour has been integral to our own priorities of delivering projects to the public in an informal, engaging and entertaining way’ [I]. In total, these activities have directly engaged 1,237 people and reached international audiences of more than 5,000. Working with the Modernist Society, the collaborative project and exhibition Making Post-War Manchester was a core component of the Manchester Histories Festival 2016, attracting over 700 visitors. A 60-page printed catalogue with written commentary, accompanying architectural images and historical plans was published with the show and sold more than 300 copies [G]. The Modernist Society were also partners in the Landscape and Architecture of Post-War Infrastructure project where more than 200 members of the public learned about the innovative design thinking in this little understood historical field.

Kettle’s research, specifically Thread Bearing Witness, has had a profound impact in a range of arenas that encompass the cultural, institutional, societal and pedagogical realms. Her collaborative methodology promotes international engagement and inclusion, placing textiles and stitch at the vanguard of an exciting and socially-engaged contemporary art practice.

Cultural and Institutional Impact

The high-profile venues, lengthy exhibition spans, acclaimed media reviews and lauded publications linked to Thread Bearing Witness were ground-breaking in the medium of textiles, placing it firmly in the rarefied sphere of fine art. The monumental scale of Kettle’s intricately stitched textiles has changed perceptions of what stitched textiles could do or be, creating a new paradigm for the field, which has challenged canonical art-historical hierarchies. Moreover, Kettle has reframed textiles as a shared, as well as a solely individual practice, inherently suited to collaboration, participation and co-creation, thus turning “the belief in the single-handed creation (of textiles) on its head.” [A]. Jennifer Harris, Curator of The Whitworth Art Gallery’s renowned textile collection (1982-2016), commented on how Kettle’s work shaped curatorial policy: “Alice was unique in the scale and ambition of her textile work. It shaped my collecting policy and the collection at The Whitworth. She was at the forefront of a new and emerging type of textiles art which redefined the medium. Alice is unique in the impact that she has had outside the UK as one of the few textile artists with work in international collections.” [B].

The artwork generated by Thread Bearing Witness was shown in eight high-profile exhibitions, centred on The Whitworth Art Gallery, and seen by 678,783 visitors [C]. The other venues were: Winchester Discovery Centre (2017); British Textile Biennial (2019); Gawthorpe Hall ( Strands of Time and Place 2019); Hanshan Museum, China (2019); Karachi Biennale, Pakistan (2019); The Knitting and Stitching Show (2020) and Threads of Change, Saïd Business School, Oxford (2020). In 2020, Kettle’s work with refugees was also the acclaimed central exhibit at the London Art Fair (2020). Thread Bearing Witness engaged new practitioners and audiences, incorporating international grassroots and specialist textile practice. The project mobilised a sea-change in museological practice, reconfiguring the gallery space and reconceptualising exhibitions from mere spectacle to participatory and transformative events. Alistair Hudson, Director of the Whitworth, attested to the project’s revolutionary approach, “the first exhibition to present making as a way of understanding, processing and thinking about societal issues. It challenged established thinking about the value of making. Thread Bearing Witness reinstated the importance of art, expression, creativity and manufacturing… It influenced our thinking as an institution and changed the way the Whitworth worked with artists in the city.” [D] . The Guardian equally recognised Kettle’s pioneering role in “creating a new, politically-engaged textiles practice through unique and powerful work.” [E]. Visitors to the exhibitions were deeply moved by the representations of refugees’ experiences, with comments such as, “I was so touched. So moving, so poignant – made me cry” and “Work created by human hands reminds us that refugees are people just like us.” [F].

Kettle’s research has also had an impact on many individual textile artists working within Thread Bearing Witness: one example is Manchester-based textile student Ibukun (Bukky) Baldwin, who Kettle mentored as the project’s artist-in-residence (2019). Bukky became the first ‘Workshop’ resident at the Whitworth, running courses for refugees. The initiative led to her Deutsche Bank Award for Creative Entrepreneurs in 2019 [G]. Thread Bearing Witness thus re-conceptualised the gallery as an inclusive and productive space where things are discussed, taught, made and sold at the same time as dispossessed people being educated and empowered.

Kettle has equally changed institutional policy in the UK. Pairings and Making It were the nascent models for Thread Bearing Witness and led Kettle to consult on Craft Development Strategy for the Arts Council in South East England (2014). Lynne Dick, former Director of the Making Space charity, who were the project partners on Making It, commented on how the project had “amplified the position of Making Space, enabling this small charity to build in the success and continuously attract new emerging designer-makers to the studio. Since Making It, Making Space studios have been fully occupied and the charity has supported over 21 different designer makers as tenants, a real success.” [H].

Societal and Pedagogical Impact

Of all the significant changes resulting from Thread Bearing Witness, the most profound are those experienced by vulnerable and marginalised people who have benefited from taking part in the project. In the UK, 89 refugee families participated in Thread Bearing Witness and regular charitable donations generated from the project go to PIKPA camp, Greece. Participants commented how stitching textiles facilitated communication (“Everyone realised that stitch was a language that communicated individual stories, feelings and emotions”); promoted wellbeing (“People felt valued through their stitching. The stitching allowed them to tell their stories. It was a very healing and positive process”); created community (“The day we went to the exhibition at the Whitworth, I was so proud that my name was displayed. At that moment I became a member of the UK and the future.”); and fostered self-esteem (“I had such sadness, I forgot I could draw and create art.”). The project further inspired and enabled participants to enter education and careers, with one participant saying: “It has inspired me to study dressmaking at university. I realised it’s never too late. It was very beneficial.” [I]. The project continues to produce legacy impacts: Kettle has set up an online Sewing Group during the COVID pandemic as a supportive, creative space, and Kani Kamil, an artist in Thread Bearing Witness, has commenced a self-funded PhD project entitled ‘The ‘Unnatural Silence’ of Iraqi Kurdish Women’, supervised by Kettle.

Kettle’s work in educational settings has generated positive change and pedagogical impact with over 55 schools and colleges taking part in Thread Bearing Witness alone. In 2019 Stepping Stones, a charity for children with special needs, invited Kettle to become a patron, commenting that the project was “the stimulus for creative work”. This resulted in 16 pupils achieving Explore Art Awards. One pupil from another school stated that, “It was amazing to see our work on display in such a prestigious gallery [The Whitworth] and I will remember the experience forever”. In 2019 Kettle participated in The Mushaira Project, which worked with 27 Manchester schools to make quilts and poetry pods. Jocelyn Aschavir, a teacher, noted how the project educated children about the refugee crisis, increased their creative skills and promoted a sense of cohesion and belonging: “Some of the children had followed the news about Syria and some were aware of the refugee camps in Greece … It was the chance to take part in a collaborative piece of art and to see the huge finished product displayed in a gallery they had never visited before that impacted them the most … Primary schools are community hubs and reach out to the community…The children who visited the gallery with their families were very impressed by their artwork being part of a bigger whole…they felt that they were part of a bigger community.”. Vanessa Rolf, the project artist in schools, expressed how stitch created mutual understanding: “The ‘ Stitch a Tree’ project spoke to people who already understood many of the issues facing refugees but also to those who felt less comfortable talking about the subject as this was a non-confrontational route to discussing displacement and humanity.” [J].

In Karachi, Kettle worked with 100 women, many of whom spoke about the life-changing effects of taking part in Thread Bearing Witness: “Until today I only stitched in the four walls of the house or at Behbud, I never knew that the work we are doing and giving will be showcased at such a high platform. Calling us here today, promoting us and the work we have done makes us realize that we are not only made to take care of our homes, but we can also go in the outside world and stand on our own feet, we can accomplish anything.”’; “I feel very proud. If my husband was present, it would show him that his wife is capable of much more than just handling the house.”; “There are a lot of tensions in life but this sort of work helps cope with them, making it easier to deal with.”; “It shows all the hard work we have put into this project; our hard work is usually hidden to the world, nobody notices us or recognizes our work.”; “It has opened our minds to new ideas.” [K].

International impact on visual media literacy

Key impact of this research has been in visual media literacy, which has involved targeted impact activities in three countries: in Canada and Colombia focused on the role of visual misinformation in elections (2019); in the UK in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic (2020).

Canada

Due to the growing threat to democratic processes, especially in relation to the 2019 Federal Elections, the Canadian government have prioritised funding research and interventions to tackle the impact of misinformation on democracy. Canadian NGO CIVIX (non-partisan, national registered charity dedicated to building the skills and habits of active and engaged democratic citizenship among young Canadians) was awarded funding and applied it to update the flagship Student Vote (SV) programme. To ensure this included state of the art materials on media literacy to tackle misinformation they engaged in a global search to identify potential new resources. CEO Taylor Gunn states that the 20Q Framework was chosen because ‘we thought it was genuinely unique, no other people were talking about images like this or using these examples and we had an instinct that this framework and working with images could be incredibly attractive to teachers. And also to students, including younger grades because it is so accessible’ [A]. During 2019, the VSML worked closely with CIVIX to translate the 20Q Framework into an innovative and timely teaching resource: Questioning Images (QI). QI became part of SV for the Canadian Federal Elections (October 2019) and was engaged with by over 1.2m young Canadians, involving more than 9,000 schools and upwards of 25,000 teachers, covering 70% of all schools in Canada [A]. QI has also been supported by Election Canada, the independent, non-partisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums. QI consists of two versions (Elementary and High School) and exists in English and French. A workshop was developed to introduce it to teachers, which was demonstrated at eight boot camps in Canada (ca.1,500 participants), of which three were delivered by Vis. In evaluating the 2019 SV programme, CIVIX found that 20% of teachers (5,000) had taught QI and used the materials, meaning that it was actively taught to as many as 240,000 pupils. For CIVIX this was the first close collaboration with academia in terms of resource-led development and it has contributed to how the organisation thinks about evaluating programmes and interventions. CIVIX CEO Taylor Gunn confirms: ‘ultimately it was Farida’s research that made QI possible for us and it’s been a really exciting, powerful but also fun partnership. QI was consistently the biggest hook at our boot camps’ [A]. In early 2020 the VSML secured funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Digital Citizen Contribution Program to further develop the partnership between the VSML and CIVIX. This research also involves The University of Alberta (Shultz). This grant (CAD214,000) has been awarded to fully assess the impact of QI during 2020-2021. Chris Beall, Director, Strategic Policy and Research in the Broadcasting and Digital Communications Branch at Canadian Heritage has stressed that this is ‘important and timely work’ [B]. Our impact survey (n=77) shows that almost all teachers agreed the framework improved their ability to identify mis- and disinformation (96.2%) as well as their ability to identify how images play a role in spreading mis- and disinformation (97.5%). Further focus groups with teachers (n=17), highlighted that they had used QI repeatedly since 2019, often as the first media literacy lesson for the year; and used it across all subject areas. They had often also recommended QI to colleagues teaching other subjects, including between schools. Almost all reported increased confidence in questioning images themselves and reported a range of skills improvements in their students, including those not directly related to misinformation detection. These included being able to debate issues better and present arguments more coherently, more sustained interest in this resource than they had expected, as well as the ability and confidence to inform and challenge the opinions of others. A great example was shared by Toronto District School Board teacher Christina Ganev, who explained that her students had questioned a guest speaker from the Toronto Public Library and introduced her to QI as a more up to date and sophisticated approach to addressing misinformation: ‘That to me is really a measure of success; that they remember and that they can apply it in a different context, which is what as teachers we’re always looking for. And that's one thing that Questioning Images does very successfully. So, there's a success story that's incredible!’ [C]. We heard many examples like this one as part of these focus groups.

Colombia

As part of CIVIX’s Voto Estudiantil (VE) programme for the Local Elections in Colombia in 2019, Vis joined CIVIX and partners at a teacher consultation in Bogota in May 2019, where she introduced 20Q and QI as part of a research presentation and workshop. Following this successful workshop, QI was translated as Analicemos Las Imagenes and included in the 2019 VE curriculum. It was distributed to teachers during five Democracy Bootcamps in Bogotá, Buenaventura, Cali, Cartagena and Medellín. In total 603 teachers worked with this curriculum and were given a printed version of the QI framework to be used with their students. The curriculum was given to 199 schools in Colombia and 220 total campuses of those schools. In total 76,245 students cast a ballot in VE 2019, which means QI potentially reached more than 76,000 students. Manuela González, part of the CIVIX team in Medellín notes how QI has contributed to an increase in critical thinking skills amongst students: ‘While we were visiting schools within the development of the Voto Estudiantil project, we identified that several teachers liked this activity due to it being interactive and attractive for students; some of those students started guessing the context of the images by creating stories based on the claims linked to the pictures, which were posts in social media sites. Finally, when the real context, facts and story behind the images were shown to the students, we were able to see how they had conversations where they talked about the need to think in a more critical way about the information that they receive on a daily basis through their social media, and how they could start developing skills to assess if contents are trustable or not’ [D].

United Kingdom

When the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in early 2020 and the UK entered its first lockdown, Vis reached out to Wise Owl Trust (WOT), a group of three primary schools (90 teachers, 1,600 pupils) with whom VSML had been developing a funding project for an extensive and longitudinal Visual Media Literacy intervention. These plans were put on hold when the pandemic hit, though the need for teacher resources to tackle Covid-19 related misinformation was more urgent than ever. The VSML received a small rapid response grant from philanthropic organisation Luminate (USD10,000) to quickly develop a resource for WOT. As a result, a guide for primary school teachers ‘Stop. Think. Share? A Teacher’s Guide to Mis- and Disinformation during the Covid-19 Pandemic’ was published in May 2020 [E]. An impact survey showed that 87.5% of teachers found the guide either helpful or extremely helpful and 78.6% reported having learned something about mis- or disinformation that they did not know before reading it. The same number of teachers also believed a resource like this would be helpful to pupils and parents and 75% stated they felt more confident in their ability to recognise mis- and disinformation while 60.7% said they think more critically about the accuracy of what they share on social media. Finally, 93% stated they would like more resources like this and 96% were not aware of any other similar resources [E]. Confirming these findings, WOT CEO Sophie Murfin states: ‘The guide has made staff far more aware of the issues and what can be done to tackle them. This has helped to curb anxieties around the spreading of misinformation especially associated with Covid-19 and has given them the confidence to question. The ability to pause and think about the reliability of information has had a huge effect on the school community. It has created space for open dialogue. This has in turn led to a far better culture, one of openness and transparency’ [F]. One of the year 6 teachers, Sam Shaw, also notes the impact on her pupils: ‘I have seen a real impact on the kids through teachers having picked up these skills. The kids in my class have become more critical of the things they see online, of the images on social media’ [G]. The Manchester Director of Education has gone on to share the guide with all state-funded primary school headteachers in Greater Manchester (137 schools).

International impact on policy and professional practice

This research has impacted policy making both nationally and internationally. The research has informed the House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry on Political Polling and Digital Media in the UK, for which Vis was invited directly to twice give oral evidence (one closed, one open session). The evidence from the public session has been extensively used in the Politics of Polling report (April 2018). This includes highlighting in full the case of a misleading image (from the Westminster attack in March 2017), which forms a key example in the 20Q workshops and QI lessons. Consequently, the report confirms the need for Visual Media Literacy training: ‘Similarly Professor Vis spoke of the “enormous potential” of the “overhauling of the national curriculum so that we can teach young people, and all citizens, how to deal with information online”’ [H]. As a result of her Visual Media Literacy research Vis was invited to join the EU’s Media Literacy Expert Group (MLEG). For this, the European Commission brings together media literacy stakeholders to meet annually to identify, document and extend good practices in the field of media literacy, facilitate networking between different stakeholders, explore synergies between different EU policies and support programmes and media literacy initiatives. In March 2019, Vis gave the keynote at the Truth Matters: Strategies for Combating Manipulated Realities seminar organised by Fulbright Finland and attended by leading journalists, educators and representatives from the Finnish Prime Minister’s Office. Mirka McIntire Manager, Teacher Exchange and Education Programs at Fulbright confirmed the importance of this presentation, stating: ‘seminar participants praised your talk and I have already shared your email address with the Finnish National Agency for Education, as one of their [Counsellors] of Education was equally impressed by your approach as we were’ [I]. In August 2019, Canadian funders and policy makers The McConnell Foundation, Luminate and the Public Policy Forum convened a group of 23 experts and stakeholders from the fields of civic digital literacy and misinformation prevention under the banner Digital Threats to Our Democracy. Vis attended this invitation-only retreat as the only participant from Europe and the report produced from this convening confirms one of the key recommendations made by Vis on the need to ‘Enrich and scale existing and nascent digital media literacy education efforts. Specifically, secure the adoption of Open Educational Resources through a combination of policy, production, implementation, and assessment efforts in order to reach a goal of universal school-age digital media literacy in ten years’ (p.11 Digital Threats to Democracy report) [J]. Work by Vis, Faulkner and Pashby has also shaped the thinking of the McConnell Foundation and other Canadian funders as well as the Canadian Government on the importance of visual misinformation [B]. In November 2019 Vis was invited to present on Visual Media Literacy at an invitation-only workshop organised by Google and Facebook (ca. 30 participants), Evidence in Action: Identifying Shared Research Priorities on Visual Misinformation, demonstrating the importance of this work to technology companies who are so centrally involved in the distribution of misinformation via their platforms. In March 2020 Vis was invited (as the only European academic) to join the Advisory Board of Reset Tech, a new initiative, bringing together experts from politics, civil society and academia, engaged in programmatic work on technology and democracy focused on shaping policy in this area. It operates internationally to ensure that the commercial interests of big tech companies are compatible with the values of robust and resilient democracies. Executive Director Ben Scott was previously a Senior Adviser to New America in Washington DC, helping design the Public Interest Technology Initiative, and led the technology policy advisory group for the 2016 Clinton US presidential campaign. Of the Visual Media Literacy work led by Vis, he stated: ‘I think your work is exceptional – at the cutting edge of the field in research on digital disinformation and informing the curricula upon which we will all depend for public education in the years to come. This issue sits at the centre of the biggest challenges we face in modern democracies’ [K].