Innovation Hub collaborations

Shining Lights aims to bring new knowledge regarding the activity and outputs of Black photographers making work in the UK to a broad public audience. The project is building new debate related to the recent publication, Shining Lights by Joy Gregory which is the first critical anthology to bring together the ground-breaking work of Black women photographers active in the UK during the 1980s and 1990s, providing a richly illustrated overview of a significant and overlooked chapter of photographic history.

Seen through the lens of Britain’s socio-political and cultural contexts, Shining Lights draws on both lived experience and historical investigation to explore the communities, experiments, collaborations, and complexities that defined the decades. The innovative and diverse work created during this period spanned documentary and conceptual practices, including the experimental use of photomontage, self-portraiture, staged imagery, and photography in dialogue with other media.

Shining Lights showcases the breadth of this work, illuminated by ephemera and archival material, historical essays, and roundtable conversations. First-hand experiences and critical reflections are provided by new writings by pioneers of the period.

Partner: Victoria & Albert Museum

UCA Contact: Anna Fox

The aim of the project is to bring together industry, local community and UCA to build a critical mass of creativity centred around the University and Farnham Maltings. The project aims to build Music & Film into an annual festival called KinoSonic that explores themes of sound and image in cinema and beyond. We aim to create knowledge exchange through performances, screenings, workshops and networking events. The programmed events have been designed to impact different members of community from local musicians, cinema goers, young people, students, through to hobbyists and retirees with a general interest in arts and culture, including:

• Live soundtrack performance of Dr Caligari by Minima.
• Screenings of immersive documentaries 32 Sounds and Sisters with Transistors.
• Talks with Ivor Novello award winning film composers Geoff Barrow (ex-Portishead) and Ben Salisbury.
• Industry talks from Ableton and BFI.
• Workshops at UCA on Foley, Ableton.
• Live soundtrack performance to a selection of Laurel & Hardy films by Neil Brand.
• Improvisational soundtrack workshop led by Sea of Cables.

Partner: Farnham Maltings

UCA contact: Matt Lindsey

The project involves a community-based exhibition and events project that will take the history of London’s street markets to the localities where they still continue today.   Street market communities will be engaged in co-creation of a shared history, and this history and heritage will be deployed to reinforce the place-making potential of the markets.

The project will deliver a series of small, local exhibitions and pop-up History Stalls in London’s street markets, exhibiting historical photographs and material, including Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s 1936 photographs from his photobook The Street Markets of London. Contemporary photographers will be commissioned to document present-day street markets, and work with community-based groups to generate new photographic material from non- professional photographers. Oral history testimory and old photographs from street market communities will be included.

Partners: London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Street Trading Office Assoc. of London Markets, Greater London Authority Markets Board.

UCA contact: Victoria Kelley

Mechanical Memory offers a ‘happening’ of interdisciplinary events, workshops, and exhibitions that showcase research findings, artistic works, and technological innovations related to memory.

It’s multiple purposes include: Launching and evaluating the ACT app to assess its impact on the quality of life for individuals living with dementia and their caregivers; Facilitating artistic collaborations and disseminating research findings and artistic outputs through, presentations, and public engagement activities.

The project consolidates and advances research on memory at UCA,  fostering a cohesive narrative for both academic impact and research culture as well as promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and engaging the local community.

UCA contact: Harry Whalley

This community-based project spans from Farnham to the Caribbean, using the work of Guyanese author Edgar Mittelholzer as a starting point for a VR film and live event. It combines spoken word, music, documentary, and latest virtual studio production.

We believe that a new audience exists for the once prolific writer whose books are largely forgotten. The aim of the project is to create an interdisciplinary project that allows for a reimagining of Mittelholzer’s work through a collaboration with historians, writers, and musicians.

2025 will mark the 60th anniversary of Mittelholzer’s death in Farnham and this will be an excellent opportunity to celebrate his work from a new and unique perspective and develop new audiences and networks.   

Partner: Farnham Literary Festival

UCA Contact: Simon Aeppli

This project has two main aims: first to expose educators at UCA to the Lego® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology, and second to create a UCA working group for the THE UCA X SeriousWork: LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®  project.

In the first stage, SERIOUSWORK run a 1.5 day session to available staff to explore the LSP® methodology in a classroom context. This would allow for a collaborative training environment where lecturers from across disciplines would be able to develop strategies to use LSP® in their own learning and teaching.

In the second stage, and further to the initial session, we will look to establish THE UCA X SeriousWork: LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Creative Development Lab where we will encourage interested parties from across disciplines to look at further refining the methodology to create a unique way of using LSP® for developing creative artefact responses and / or teaching within an art school environment.

Partner: SeriousWork

UCA contact: Ted Wilkes

This immersive learning project aims to empower children by teaching them how to use virtual reality (VR) technology and enabling them to share their stories and experiences through creative storytelling.

The project collaborates with both Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and the Army Welfare Service (AWS), leveraging their unique strengths to empower children through VR technology and storytelling. Working with SAS allows us to engage children with critical environmental issues, fostering a deep connection to ocean conservation through the creation of immersive VR experiences. Simultaneously, our partnership with AWS focuses on supporting military children, providing them with a platform to share their personal stories and navigate their unique challenges in a creative and therapeutic environment.

Partner: Surfers Against Sewage

UCA contact: Lucy Hayto

This project explores collaborative opportunities and develop a funding relationship with Children’s Health Ireland, showcasing how UCA’s games and creative technology provision can be used to inform practice-based research with real-world impact.

We aim to build creative technology prototypes for the clinical team in the Forest Hospital to use to develop grant applications with a focus on children 8-17 who cannot leave the ward due to illness or treatment, and also establish a proof of concept and research relationship that can be used to explore future international funding opportunities with Children’s Health Ireland.    

Partner: New Children’s Hospital, Ireland

UCA Contact: Jeremiah Ambrose

The project integrates emerging technologies into live performance, enhancing the creative process and final production of Pepa Ubera's new work, “The Machine of Horizontal Dreams” (TMoHD) which will be premiered at Sadler’s Wells in summer 2025.

This project aims to challenge traditional social structures and explore the body's interaction with ecology and technology through interdisciplinary practice.

It’s objectives are: to explore and apply emerging technologies such as AI, projection mapping, live movement capture (mocap and volcap), and hybrid digital/physical performance practices within a live performance context; to foster collaboration between Pepa Ubera, UCA researchers, and students, promoting interdisciplinary knowledge exchange and to create a pioneering performance piece that positions UCA at the forefront of integrating technology within the performing arts, showcased through the premiere at Sadler’s Wells.

Partner: Pepa Ubera

UCA Contact: Sophy Smith 

The key aim of the project is to exchange knowledge between UCA researchers and Stopgap Dance Company in order to explore innovative uses of technology in inclusive dance practices. It aims to leverage motion capture for inclusivity, promoting accessible digital dance while challenging social perceptions to present positive representations of diversity. Barriers to digital dance participation will be identified and addressed, and training and mentoring programs for diverse dancers will be offered. The project will advocate for inclusivity and reflecct on best practices in accessible dance.

Partner: Stop Gap Dance

UCA Contact: Gavin Lewis

Murmuration’s aims to test radical new ways of non-human collaboration, exploring human, plant/vegetal & mineral relationships in the context of neurodiversity & artistic creation (with a focus on writing), whilst developing new ways of curating through community partnerships, including the co-curation of a symposium, outreach & exhibition programme on Neurodiversity, Nature & Creativity, produced in partnership with Living Words and their annual Normal? Festival of the Brain.

The project develops new professional networks for UCA in arts & health sector, and new audiences for UCA, fostering new ways of co-curating, through mentorship & collaboration for both UCA & Living Words while promoting UCA as a cross-disciplinary space for practice-based research.

Partner: Living Words

UCA Contact: Bean

Partners: Farnham Craft Town (also New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham Town Council, Craftspace, Birmingham).

UCA Contact: Stephen Knott

This project aims to adapt and test the PC4Fashion tool developed for the use of the broader textile and fashion industry to meet the specific needs for the design and development of circular sports apparel, and more specifically, cricket clothing as a case study.

The project builds upon the learning from the PC4Fashion tool funded by the previous round of Knowledge Exchange Fund (December 2023) which sought to develop a product circularity starter tool to support the fashion, clothing, and textile industry in commencing their circularity journey. The focus of the PC4Fashion tool was to support the design and development process to produce products that are aligned to circular economy principles.

Partner: Lacuna Sports (sportswear company); Trevor Davis & Associates (TDA); UK Fashion and Textiles association (UKFT); British Fashion Council (BFC) (initial discussion over potential partnership); Decathlon and potentially The Salvation Army (major UK textiles repairer).

UCA Contact: Lilian Sanchez Moreno

Cricket is the 2nd largest sport globally with sustainability activities in the sector focused on the impact of climate change on venues and grounds. There has been little research related to sustainability and specifically circularity related to the gear used to play the game. This project builds on the lessons learnt from previous projects by the team. The aim is to develop tangible outcomes and impacts based on learning from these projects and continue to build relationships with stakeholders.

The project will focus on two areas: a) Place-based innovation (PBI); b) Design and development (D&D); c) Exploitation routes for outcomes of a) and b). PBI: to build on the lessons learnt from 3 pilot projects in Surrey focused on cricket gear reuse that delivered over 450+ items of cricket gear of which a significant proportion was redistributed locally to state schools, disadvantaged individuals and cash-strapped families; to establish a cricket gear reuse and impact analysis programme for cricket clubs in Surrey working with Surrey Cricket Foundation (SCF) and the Coop; to deliver cricket repair and refurbishment training in Surrey with SCF, Coop and Decathlon. D&D: to further develop prototypes: (i) cricket batting pad that incorporates vegan leathers and circular designs; (ii) wicket keeping inner gloves that use vegan leather; (iii) refurbished cricket gloves that utilise recycled leather; and (v) cricket gear repair kit. Complete a plan related to routes for exploitation of outputs from a) and b).

Partners: Various

UCA Contact: Martin Charter

Classed Acts is an ongoing series of socially engaged research projects whose key aim is to address barriers to inclusion for people from working-class backgrounds in Creative Higher Education (CHE) and the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs).

The proposed project ‘Classed Acts: Turning up the Volume’ is a public engagement event which builds on the successes of knowledge exchange partnerships built through the Classed Acts podcast – a UCA/EDI/ECR funded research-podcast launched in December 2023.

This public engagement event will develop themes from the podcast through an afternoon symposium with a keynote speaker and panel discussion of invited guests from the podcast and more widely, and an evening event of live music and performance showcase by invited artists from working-class backgrounds.

This public engagement event will expand on discussion from the Classed Acts podcast, addressing inequalities and social inclusion in the CCIs and CHE; inform and engage wider audiences and reshape public opinion on working-class narratives through exploring the experiences of those in careers in the arts and creative education; foster industry engagement and deepen partnerships with stakeholders including Story Compound and Uncultured Creatives. 

Partner: Story Compound and Uncultured Creatives

UCA Contact: Sarah Scarsbrook

The project aims to develop a ‘street furniture’ for the local communities of Dajing Village, an urban village adjacent to Xiamen University’s Zhangzhou Campus where ICI is located. The piece aims to combine a system of composting, cultivation space allocation, and socializing.

One objective concerns the recycling of organic waste matter, which when turned into compost, can be used for community cultivation. The compost produced through organic composting is free of heavy-metal pollution and thus produces healthier food and contributes to the cycle of sustainability.

Space is an issue in the village, which is why the concept seeks to create a public system of space allocation through provision of planting trays and the use of rooftop spaces, thus impacting the way of thinking in space planning of the village.

Lastly, the piece aims to incorporate social space and structures that allow people to just sit, relax, and gossip. As a matter of social innovation, undertaking of this project requires constant dialogue with the village authority and other enterprises. Thus one of the key aims is to foster long-term research relationships between academia, community and enterprise through a project that could potentially benefit all three and thus breakdown boundaries for increasing impact.

Furthermore, the project aims to organize a team of students to work on it collaboratively, therefore integrating sustainability, social innovation and commercial value-generating with pedagogic practice, benefitting enterprise, local communities, as well as education

Partners: Dajing Community Shareholders Economic Collaborative Collective,  Xiamen Hua Li New Architectural Decor Corporation Ltd., Xiamen Black Truffle Commerce Company Ltd.

UCA Contact: Zihong Yue