The Arts and Culture Projects team is based within the Faculty of Creative Arts, Technologies & Science (CATS)

The Arts and Culture Projects team partners with many regional, national and international cross-sector organisations to widen participation into the creative industries and enable current and budding cultural practitioners to thrive. This includes working laterally within the UoB and across the region on projects that innovate and mobilise new knowledge and untold stories for the betterment and sustainable growth of the local cultural sectors.

This includes working with non-creative subject areas, looking at the role of interdisciplinary arts creation and knowledge exchange in order to diversify the skills, knowledge and future potential of arts output across our campuses, the region and beyond.

In addition to core UoB staff, the team is formed of various fixed-term and externally funded roles that reflect the various projects embedded within Arts and Culture Projects.

Joining the University in 2017, Emma heads up the Arts and Culture Projects Team. Emma has international experience in establishing socially-engaged cultural projects in partnership with non-creative sectors, educational institutions, arts and heritage organisations.

She has specific specialisms in Applied practice, widening participation agendas and situation higher education institutions at the heart of sector-level capacity-building agendas.

Prior to working at UoB, Emma was the Learning and Participation Manager at Trestle Theatre Company and Lecturer in Drama (MA and PGCE courses) for Middlesex University. In 2016, she was part of the All Party Parliamentary Arts, Health and Wellbeing SIG Group, supporting the Creative Health inquiry. This derived from the Arts and Health practice that Emma developed at Trestle, as well as before Trestle, whilst she was a freelance artist.

You can get in touch with Emma Gill at emma.gill@beds.ac.uk

Jitty Marwaha leads the delivery of the University’s two Local Cultural Education Partnership (LCEP) programmes in Luton and Bedford, both of which receiving from the University of Bedfordshire and Partnership Investment from ROH Bridge

Jitty has vast knowledge and experience working locally, regionally, and further afield in the cultural sector, education and in outreach contexts. Her knowledge of events management, education and diverse cultural practice is a real asset to the Arts and Culture projects team, and she is keen to bring these strands together to make arts education more robust in Luton and Bedford.

You can get in touch with Jitty Marwaha at jitty.marwaha@beds.ac.uk

Leona is the new Heritage Projects and Partnership Officer, joining the team in 2022. Leona has experience in place-based memory work, hyper-local heritage preservation through audio, and expanding these social gain concepts into national collections.

Prior to this, she worked as the Creative Director and Oral Historian of Inkslingers Media, a production company developing audio projects with museums, arts organisations and community media, to create radio programmes, documentaries and podcasts from oral history archives and community heritage stories, and as Operations and Volunteer Manager for Hertfordshire’s Mix 92.6 radio station and as a BBC Radio 4 and 2 producer across factual programming.

As part of her practitioner-led Honours research in 2019, she investigated volunteer community radio production in the UK through an autoethnographic model and is experienced at developing collaborative approaches in arts-based practices. In 2020, she joined the AudioUK board, supporting the creative industries to grow. Alongside her work in participatory arts and in-depth storytelling, Leona continues to work as a freelance audio producer and heritage consultant.

Jen joined the Arts and Culture Projects team as the Heritage Projects Administrator in October 2022.

Graduating from the University of Birmingham with a history degree in 2021, Jen subsequently completed an MA in heritage conservation at the University of York. In both courses Jen consistently sought opportunities to investigate the histories of underrepresented groups. She is interested in the ways in which heritage practitioners can use the past to connect with communities and build relationships, and her post-graduate thesis examined the barriers preventing members of marginalised groups from engaging with built heritage conservation and planning.

Jen has experience working in a number of heritage institutions in the South East and West Midlands. Having grown up in Bedfordshire, she is now keen to make a difference at home and highlight the value of local heritage.

You can get in contact with Jen Lewis at jennifermay.lewis@beds.ac.uk

Graduated in 2022 from the University of Bedfordshire, Petronela has a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Art Practice and currently joins us in a graduate placement scheme as an Arts and Culture Projects Assistant. Her practice revolves at the moment around the discovery of new materials and methods. She finds joy in gatherings where people come together to create forms of bonding through painting from observation, storytelling, music production, collages, or protests. She attached herself to the world of applied theatre, which allowed her to appreciate different types of inclusive pedagogies that create safe spaces.

You can get in contact with Petronela-Elisa Citea at petronela-elisa.citea@beds.ac.uk

Our General Enquiries mailbox is collaboratively managed by all members of the Arts and Culture Projects team. We check this inbox at the start and end of each week, and can include queries such as, but not limited to:

• Being added onto our newsletter
• Signposting support for Facilities Space
• Opportunities for collaboration
• Enquiries from UoB students and recent graduates
• Ideas for resources

Email: culture@beds.ac.uk

Twitter: twitter.com/UoBArtsProjects

Paula joined the University in 2011 and heads up Collaborative Projects within the Department of Marketing, Admissions, Recruitment and Communications (MARC). Paula project manages the Office for Students funded Uni Connect programme, Aspire Higher, which is in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire and University of Northampton. Aspire Higher is one of 29 consortia across England aiming to support the aims of social mobility and increasing the number of young people from underrepresented groups who go into higher education.

Paula also leads on the relationship between the University and the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) and supports the evaluation of activity for the University of Bedfordshire's APP returns.

In the context of the Arts and Culture Projects team, Paula works closely with Emma Gill in the scoping out of large scale and cross-sector projects that meet various institutional agendas. This includes, but not limited to UniConnect and the APP. Paula and Emma also work collaboratively in developing new community partnerships that have transactional benefit to the University and the local area.

Finally, Paula mentors the LCEP Projects and Partnerships Officer to ensure the officer is supported to be embedded within the institution.

You can get in touch with Paula Page at paula.page@beds.ac.uk

Based within the School of Media and Performance, Amanda Egbe is an artist, researcher and filmmaker whose artistic practice and research concerns moving image archives and digital technologies and practices.

Amanda’s research focuses on the practice and theory of radical archiving practices, media histories, digital technologies, race, politics and the ethics of new media. She has worked on large-scale digitisation projects such as the National Review of Live Art Archives at the University of Bristol and also archives the Tesla Art and Science Research Interest Group collection.

Amanda's teaching covers the practical and theoretical applications of media technologies. Her teaching practice centres around blended learning practices and problem-based learning and includes visits to museums, galleries, festivals as well as talks and masterclasses from invited experts.

In the Context of the Arts and Culture Projects team, Amanda provides academic and practitioner expertise on the new Heritage project as well as mentors the Heritage Projects and Partnerships Officer. Amanda says about the Heritage project:

"What has got me very excited about this project, is that it is really taking seriously the question about how we can diversify our heritage. In areas such as Luton and Bedford, so much of the impactful culture, the communities of practice, the creativity that has been important to the development of this community which has also had national and international impact, has been overlooked. Part of that is not just because materials have not been preserved or brought into the archives. But it is also because people have thought that these artworks, these happenings these moments aren’t important, but they are."

"There are people who can tell you about these events, and these happenings, and they don’t realise that they are playing the role of historian and archivist. The idea of this project is that turn that on its head to exchange skills, to develop approaches to making the Heritage accessible and relevant - because it’s important now and for the future of this community. My role will be to be part of the mentoring of the project team. To consider how Heritage can be done with an eye to being anti-racist, to be actively fight discrimination, that is collaborative, this is the way we can start to make heritage inclusive and diverse."

You can contact Amanda Egbe at amanda.egbe@beds.ac.uk

Cherrelle manages and delivers on sports development at the University of Bedfordshire. Areas include sports scholarships, student personal development in sport and sports projects.

In the context of the Arts and Culture Projects team, Cherrelle is mentoring the Heritage Projects Administrator as part of the new heritage project to ensure this new staff member is supported and embedded into the University from a project administration perspective.

You can contact Cherrelle Emanuel at cherrelle.emanuel@beds.ac.uk