Title: Entertaining Swindon: Performing Arts in Swindon 1955–1985.
Client: Swindon Museum & Art Gallery (Arts Council funded)
Role: creative producer: historical researcher, community engagement, curator, writer, designer, print management, exhibition build and decant, artefact loans, publicity
Brief: Celebrate Swindon's amateur performing arts culture, 1950s amateur dramatic societys to 1980s punk bands. Content created through archives, personal interviews and requests for photos and artefacts; archive research.
Interpretation panels' design dictated by available images/wall space dictated design.
"A significant amount of public engagement with the people of Swindon helped to form the content of the exhibition. Kate showed considerably strong communication skills in this public engagement role, quickly making links to exploit local knowledge, building goodwill to rally support for the project and keep the Swindon Museum & Art Gallery regularly informed of progress."
Community connections: Discovering a chain of connections from long-demolished theatres to punk bands became the central theme of the exhibition theme ( a eureka moment mentioned in Ian Doeser's 'A Big Fish in a Small Puddle').
Interpretation panels were donated to Swindon Central Library's Local Studies Department.