SALLY FORT

Together with a group of ten year olds we creates a series of textile pieces used as part of the celebrations around the launch of a new HLF funded local heritage trail. Working with the theme of 'secrets and codes', we explored  some stopping points along the trail, experimented with creating codes in textiles, uncovered hidden histories, and will take part in an exhibition to launch the trail in Spring 2012. You can read a bit more about the work in progress *here*.

Our Coast Our Sea: Developed by Flow Associates, Our Coast Our Sea is an interactive digital resource supporting the natural heritage of the Northumberland and Berwickshire coast.  With Flow, Sally developed the education marketing strategy for the resource and looking at long term options for its wider marketing potential. In reality education isn't really a place for marketing as such. Teachers are too busy to respond to traditional marketing methods and are swamped with competing offers. The approach we took was about creating and building relationships, trust and quality - and created a framework, suggested tasks, timeframes, contacts and costings to do so properly.

In partnership with National Museums Liverpool and a local school, Norton Priory developed an innovative interpretation project. Using funding from NESTA's Innovate programme, they worked with NML's conservation centre to create a 3D interactive model of their St Christopher statue. The 3d imaging combined with haptic technology means visitors can now see the original colours of the statue (long since eroded away in reality). By using a haptic glove visitors can feel the statue turning as the 3d image shows how it would look. NESTA commissioned Sally as their supervisor for the project, monitoring its progress and acting as a critical friend to the partnership group, with a particular emphasis on partnership working, evaluation and user consultation.

The trust wanted to broaden its reach, celebrating the heritage of its local town. Ian Curtis, singer of the band Joy Division lived in Macclesfield, and the trust sought to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the singer's death by celebrating the work created by Ian and the band. A festival of events including an exhibition, film festival, community projects and arts workshops was commissioned. Sally project managed the visual arts community strand of the festival creating events to appeal to young people and adults, local and from further afield. My programming was set up to explore the culture of the band's heyday whilst making contemporary connections relevant to young people and local residents now. Images from some of these events are shown above.

Evaluation of the three year Community Engagement programme accompanying the major redevelopment of the Birmingham History galleries. This means finding out what participants are getting from the work, how the organisation is befitting by having local people involved, how they could be doing things a bit better, and eventually, how successful the final exhibitions are. You can find out more *here *