New Town Culture (2019-ongoing)

New Town Culture is a curatorial programme I conceived and led, securing funding from the GLA and the Mayor of London, embedded within the work of Barking and Dagenham Council.

The programme explored how contemporary artistic practice can connect with statutory social care — supporting staff working in under-resourced circumstances to develop approaches rooted in relationship-based practice, and to move away from transactional, risk-averse ways of working. It led to demonstrable changes in how social work and youth justice are practised in the borough.

The programme commissioned over thirty projects with artists working across foster care, youth justice, leaving care services, and with young people with experience of forced migration and of being unaccompanied asylum seekers. Projects ranged from sound and podcast making, filmmaking, spoken word and music, to designing new currencies, building imaginary environments, gardening, dance and movement, and creative mentoring. Artists commissioned directly by the programme included India Harvey, Joe Namy, Hannah Kemp-Welch, Naz Hoque, Albert Potrony, Amy Leung, Belinda Zhawi, Paul Crook, Lady Unchained, Marley Starsky Butler, Gayle Chong Kwan and Aislinn Evans. I also commissioned Serpentine Galleries, Create London and Company Drinks to develop work within the programme — through which artists including Sonia Boyce, Helen Cammock, Ilona Sagar, Rory Pilgrim, Emma Smith, Elsa James, Aislinn Evans and Sarina Mantle were commissioned.

Alongside artistic commissions, the project generated a substantial body of practical resources — including podcasts, workshops, practitioner toolkits and whole-service training days — designed for use by both artists and social care professionals. From this foundation grew lasting structural change: the founding of The Barking Women's Museum, and the co-development of a pioneering MA module in Creative Social Work with Goldsmiths, University of London.