Levenshulme High School
Joanne Davies
Schools and Colleges Manager, Manchester City Galleries
Brief Vocational Biography
I have been working at Manchester City Galleries within the schools and colleges team since 2005. My main duties include, devising activities for 3-19 year olds, delivering teacher training courses, managing a team of 20 freelance artist/educators and leading projects to develop and extend our programme. Before I joined the gallery, I worked as an 11-18 Art, craft and design teacher and completed an MA in Art History at the University of Manchester.
Motivations and Aims for Taking the PDP
The PDP came at a pivotal point in my career as I had just returned to my original position within the Gallery after covering my manager's maternity leave. This period of transition allowed me to consider how I can develop and evolve within the team. The PDP helped me frame this time of personal and professional progression to ensure I was able to deliver my responsibilities to the organisation as effectively as possible, whilst exploring my longer term career aspirations.
Project Developed
Creating a buzz: Developing approaches to advocacy and dissemination
I based my PDP on a work based research project around the Gallery's special exhibition for the autumn 2010, Angels of Anarchy: Woman Artists and Surrealism. I developed a programme of activities including a workshop, a teacher's course, an artist in schools project that showcased young people's responses to the themes within the exhibition and a museum/gallery professional sharing event.
Seven young women, from Levenshulme High School, completing a GCSE Applied Art course made new artworks inspired by the exhibition's key themes and created them during their work experience placement at the gallery. The results were on display adjacent to the Angels exhibition, as an installation entitled, Teenangels, and received much praise from visitors. ""So impressed by how controversial and intelligent these young girls are"."" "I walked into your wonderful display not realising it was 'separate.' It felt no less deserving of a place in this marvellous gallery.""
The workshop created for the exhibition used our new interpretative resource the Object Dialogue Box (ODB), a collection of fused surreal objects that naturally generate imaginative and personal responses to artworks. The success of its use throughout the exhibition has allowed us to integrate the ODB into our permanent secondary workshop Thinking Visually.
During the exhibition, we had our highest number of secondary school visits, creating new relationships that we have built on throughout the academic year, as we have continued to use special exhibitions to targeted secondary schools and colleges and develop our audience. http://www.manchestergalleries.org/angelsofanarchy/
Outcomes and Future Plans
The PDP has provided me with the time to reflect on my working practice and develop my approach and methodology. Concentrating on advocacy and dissemination has ensured I make time to involve others. I have used this experience to build confidence in communicating ideas, sharing my practice both internally and externally. I have also begun a Professional Doctorate in Museum Practice with the University of Manchester to help me to continue on this path. I am developing my role, to explore interpretation and new ways of engaging the public with the galleries collection and special exhibition programme.
Contact: j.davies5@manchester.gov.uk