Sue Clive, José Rodrigues, Far Flung Dance Theatre, John Whall, Kristianne Drake, Louise Fraser and Laura Smith-Higgins
Marsh Award for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Arts Engagement
Sue Clive MBE
Sue began her career as an Art and English teacher before moving into Gallery Education. In her teaching, she used images to stimulate creative writing and, after realising how much students gained from looking at art, she began to organise visits to museums and galleries. Following this, she became Head of Art at a grammar school where she hosted the first two Artists-in-Schools programmes in the Northwest. This is a programme that provides artist-run workshops in schools in line with the curriculum. Sue completed her Master’s Degree in art education at Manchester Polytechnic and focused her dissertation on ‘How Children Come Into Contact with Contemporary Art/Artists’, which led her to run workshops in galleries and set up and run education programmes. Sue was a founder member of Engage, whilst still working as a freelancer, and following her retirement, sat on Engage’s Advisory Council. Sue really enjoyed seeing people getting excited and interested in contemporary art.
Marsh Award for International Excellence in Visual Arts Engagement
José Rodrigues – Portugal
José is the founder of Teatro Metaphora, a non-profit organization on a small Portuguese Island, Madeira, which struggles with socio-economic problems, lack of participation, and fewer opportunities. José´s dedication to community development has had a great impact on the island’s residents. He has been a police officer for 20 years, which is his paid job, but alongside this, he spends the rest of his time running the organisation, making hundreds of educational projects and promoting artistic-environmental activities to give opportunities for people, and strengthening the sense of inclusion, and sustainable development on the island. GREEN STEPS is his most well-known project which already received recognition from the local, national, and international levels. The project promotes upcycling to create art and raises awareness about sustainable development and social inclusion through art. People around José are empowered by what he is doing, he dreams big and encourages others to dream along with him and to work to turn those dreams into reality. He has a unique talent for engaging with people through art and creativity.
Marsh Awards for Excellence is Visual Arts Engagement
Far Flung Dance Theatre – Clair Beckett and Sarah Farrow-Jones
Clair and Sarah have been working with Far Flung Dance Theatre to create creative spaces for disabled people and communities in Plymouth’s art scene. They focus on accessible and friendly approaches to engaging with the city’s visual culture. Far Flung have collaborated with the city on supporting Plain Speaking Tours for British Art Show 9, The Travelling Museum of Communities, where they created a visual dance performance. They have supported PRIME design visual art and skate project with support in disability advocacy and ensure all wheeled communities are included in the work. Far Flung have supported Social Making 2022 with workshops, making stations and chill out spaces, lead on auditing all of their events. They have worked to commission and support city-wide festivals and events continuously like Respect, Plymouth Art Weekender. Their mix of performance and visual culture ensures that they are making art as accessible as possible to audiences.
John Whall
John has dedicated more than 15 years of his life to participatory arts. John joined Metro-Boulot-Dodo (MBD) in Leicester in 2021, and made an instant impact on their reach and engagement. His efforts focused on creating works using games engine technology. John has also worked on the Odyssey Project, which is a co-location Virtual Reality performance made with young people in residential care. The young people wrote and performed the show, as well as creating their own visual rooms. The project bought together MBD, Derby Theatre and young people in care. Since then, John has built a range of workshops that support young people in formal settings as well as holiday activities in MBD’s studio. John continues to find new ways to open up digital development skills to those who often do not have access to the tools or knowledge that MBD have in house. It is inspiring for participants, and it is inspiring for John to find new ways to connect and co-create.
Kristianne Drake
Kristianne has worked in arts based creative education since 2007. Over the years they have specialised in working with young people outside mainstream education, particularly those most at risk or vulnerable of committing crime and/or becoming the victims of it. In 2015 they founded In Focus Education and Development CIC. Through this they have been lucky to deliver twice with associate partners John Hansard Gallery at the Tate Exchange programme at Tate Modern, see students work commended in the Koestler Awards, and co-write a chapter for the Monument Fellowship Foundation book on Crime and Consequence. As an autistic nonbinary person they have developed close links to the local LGBTQIA+ youth group and following a successful Arts Council Project grant are delivering a 2-year project with them.
Louise Fraser
Louise has been a freelance neuro-diverse artist educator for over 18 years, and is also a secondary school art and design teacher. In her role as a freelance artist educator Louise has worked with many of Edinburgh’s Galleries and Museums. Louise has contributed to numerous Fruitmarket engagement projects since 2006 including Making Matters which is a three-year schools programme, Fresh Fruit a co-produced youth led programme and Making Memories that delivers creative reminiscence work with older people. Louise is currently working on further projects that include working with adults with visual impairments, and developing a new three-year schools programme. She is also an artist in residence with young people at the Edinburgh Royal Hospital for Children and Young People. Louise is aiming to undertake research to further deepen her knowledge and understanding of multi-sensory ways of working.
Laura Smith-Higgins
Laura joined the team at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in 2020 and rose to the demands that pandemic created. Laura quickly worked to respond to the need for alternative and digital engagement for schools, focusing on the most vulnerable students to ensure they could still experience the visual arts. Laura has led the learning team to rebuild, rebrand and make their programmes stronger and more exciting than before, leading to an increase in the number of new visitors and participants, and a 196% increase in funding. Laura secured a mutually beneficial relationship with the local Primary School’s subject pioneer for Arts and Design, ensuring her work is directly linked with the local curriculum needs. Laura has developed a highly successful relationship with the Engineering University Technical College to encourage arts education and devise projects for the students to link directly with an artist from Germany to create their own exhibitions, using their own art, designs and engineering skills. Laura has enabled her team to further develop co-curation with learning disabled adults to ensure they are more involved in programmes and have access to mentorship.