In Phase One, Local government officers (LGOs) from Gosport, Isle of Wight, New Forest, Portsmouth and Rushmoor council will participate in three workshops held in the University of Southampton’s Digital Humanities Hub. These workshops will be used to identify and map our connections and gaps in regional provision for cultural activities. The sessions will use haptic data visualisations to identify ‘cold spots’ across the region, and to share insights from the Invisible Mentors project on the ways mentoring schemes can support connectivity and expand access to cultural and creative assets across the region. We will support LGOs to develop and explore new models for creative and cultural engagement in their area, and write prompts for creative freelancers participants for the second phase of the project.
In Phase Two, the project team will run four themed workshops on ‘Writing Beyond Sectors’ for creative industries freelancers working in the Solent region. We will design the workshops as zones of interaction and intervention. Prompts from the LGO workshops will be used to facilitate conversations and discussion on mentoring and training experiences at a variety of career stages and to build a close, collaborative group of creative artists. Through the exchange of cross-sector perspectives, the workshops will enable the investigators and facilitators to identify and reflect on different approaches to mentoring and collaboration, drawing on the techniques developed by the project team in Invisible Mentors.
Meet our fantastic freelancers here.
Phase Three will focus on consolidating new networks through innovative creative practice. After completing the phase two workshops, we will invite the creative freelancers to take part in a series of collaborative paid commissions. The PDRA will connect our existing writing network with international writer-mentors to encourage them to be connectors and advocates for culture. They will be supported to run workshops in Gosport, Portsmouth, Rushmoor, Isle of Wight, and the New Forest with the project team, working with members of the Portsmouth Asian Socio-Cultural Organisation, Women’s Integration Group, and Mayflower Young Writers to develop new creative works for a project anthology. We will also offer further support through online workshops on creative and cultural advocacy.
In Phase Four, the project team will hold a final launch event of new works created throughout the project in January 2024, inviting all participants from programme, and local business and community stakeholders. We will invite attendees to take part in a final interactive online workshop reflecting on how their experience of the creative identity of the region has been shaped by participation in the project.
Diverse Capacities 