Life on the Outskirts: Making Sense of a Creative Life

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How do small creative enterprises use archives for public engagement, creative, commercial and pedagogic impact? Based on work by HSF and KU, later developed with MMU, this project considers models to maximise the impact of such archives.Funded by Creativeworks London, LOTO mobilised HSF's unique archive collections via research, digitisation, education and exhibition. Hub funding restricted activities to London; extending impact beyond London is a key project aim. We will test the feasibility of mobilising creative SME archive holdings for public education and unforeseen economic applications via knowledge exchange, public engagement and dissemination activities in Leeds, London and Manchester. This scales up lessons learnt during LOTO, develops new audiences, and applies knowledge gained to other archives and young creative practitioners. Activities include:1. Student archives workshops in Leeds, London and ManchesterA series of inter-disciplinary archive workshop sessions hosted at University of Leeds, MMU and KU will use examples from HSF archives and draw on archive pedagogic theory to construct material creative tasks relevant to practitioners. The workshops test previously piloted ideas on art and design pedagogy with wider audiences. Transferable session plans devised from the workshops will enable ideas to be applied elsewhere. Parallel sessions in Leeds, Manchester and Kingston will document differences in student approaches to tasks in northern and London art schools and encourage dialogue across student bodies via blogging, social media and video conferencing.2. Connecting with creative archives concerned with material objects and creative industryIssues addressed by HSF's archives are similar to other archive collections nationwide. The project will construct beneficial knowledge exchange and network activity with small creative archives such as Kingston School of Art Archives, Man Met Special Collections, and Constance Howard Textile Archives at Goldsmiths University. We will establish a network of SMEs, academics and archives sharing interest in mobilising archive collections for educational, commercial and public engagement purposes. Exchanging archival strategies across organisations will benefit creative economy by generating opportunities for dissemination and collaboration. A symposium exploring issues for small archives and SMEs with personal archives will enable us to disseminate findings nationwide.3. Fostering sustainable approaches to archiving with young creative professionalsProject researchers and HSF will mentor recent graduates from Leeds, MMU and KU who share practical concerns aligned to HSF's core approaches. Mentoring will develop techniques for the creation, mobilisation and exploitation of creative archives - offering expertise in SME operation, archives research and development and use of archives in contemporary creative practice. Developing a dialogue-led exploration of past creativity, mentoring will lead to a public exhibition co-hosted across university partners. The mentoring process will result in new advisory documents for recent graduates detailing best practice for developing archives to maximise commercial and cultural impact.4. Archiving collaborative processesProjects documented in LOTO were often collaboratively developed by HSF with external partners. These connections offer an opportunity to develop techniques that consider multiple authorship of archive content. The project will contact past creative partners to achieve this.5. Feasibility study on archive-based commercial productsThe possibility for future commercial applications from creative SME archives requires more investigation. We will examine the potential for web-based and mobile app design drawing on archives to create future products. Follow-on funding enables us to develop concepts, consult with production companies and construct a HSF archive website to enable this.