Shed of the year 2024, Sponsored by 
S.H.E.D is Mobile and flexible
S.H.E.D is all about the shedding of preconceptions of people and place.
S.H.E.D is an arts venue, a conversation starter, a dialogue enhancer and a research facilitator. S.H.E.D is entirely dedicated to artistic research through public engagement and co-production. S.H.E.D has 11 possible configurations to be a flexible, and bespoke designed public art space. It can be indoors or outdoors, opened or closed. It is 10ft x 8ft when closed, and can be up to 16ft x 30ft when opened up with multiple side and floor panels, roof options and doors! We have also created 3 S.H.E.D PODS which are 3ft x 4ft and 7.5ft high. They provide additional seating, resting spaces and have even had VR machines inside them! S.H.E.D is accessible and inclusive, providing a platform for emerging and established practitioners, artists and the public. The projects that take place within S.H.E.D are tailored to the specific problem or question raised by the community it visits, and the physical reconfigurations can reflect this, engaging with hard-to-reach locations or areas where audiences are identified as high barriers to access to the arts.
Since its launch in 2019, S.H.E.D has toured to several schools delivering music, drama, art, carnival, Basketball, dance working with cultural organisations as part of ThisisDerby. To name just a few, S.H.E.D has visited Theatres, Car Parks, City Centre Spaces, Festivals and Public Art Galleries. As a public art space, it is accessible and inclusive, providing a platform for emerging and established practitioners and artists. Imagination is the only constraint.
S.H.E.D is available for:
Community engagement: through civically engaged activity
Commissioning: full-cost booked activities that offset the community and participatory work
Research: giving voice to place, engaging communities in dialogue, creating and disseminating academic outputs
As a touring project, S.H.E.D can visit hard- to-reach locations or areas where audiences would not travel to participate. The projects that take place within it are tailored to the specific problem or question raised by the community it visits, and the physical reconfigurations can reflect this.
How S.H.E.D has been configured so far:
A theatre space
A dance venue
A learning centre
A cinema
A quiet reading space
A discussion space
An art gallery
A music venue
A CV centre
A story telling space, fish and chips included!
A Christmas grotto
A recording studio
A rehearsal space
A writing retreat
S.H.E.D is designed to:
Promote social mobility and tackle inequality
Support co-creation within design and creative arts practice
Invest in real issues and subject matters that people want to discuss
Develop relationships between HE, industry and creative cultural organisations
Enrich and nurture collaborative approaches to artistic research
Be co-designed with partners, users, commissions, communities, public
Provide a long-term commitment and investment in people
Support artistic development, public mobility and cohesion
Be a diverse, accessible and a customised space
Operate in line with the cultural ambitions for the city it visits
Put the A (Arts) back into STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine)
Be a transformative space, both in its innovative design and for conversation
Our S.H.E.D project developed from Dr Rhiannon Jones's work into how we create spaces for dialogue, how we as a society go to places and interact with those places and with one another. Her research investigates how we use artistic practice as a strategy to help people to find ways to talk.
S.H.E.D came into being because it is a recognised household product that invites curiosity and provokes discussion.It has currently 11 different configurations, each design has been built for bespoke activity and needs of a specific community that are using S.H.E.D. Its unrivalled success is down to the communities that work with us to help transform it and engage with the ambitions of S.H.E.D in order to create a platform for conversation. It plays in the space between art and the everyday. It is particularly attractive to younger audiences and otherwise disengaged groups who might prove difficult to engage in research and consultation.
Working with Dr Rhiannon Jones (S.H.E.D Creative Director) is Simon Burrows, aka S.H.E.D Master Builder, a retired cabinet maker and hobbyist.
S.H.E.D creatives invited a class of University of Derby's BA Hons Interior Design Students to work on the project to help develop the practical mobility of S.H.E.D. The project also worked closely with cultural venues and industry partners who were to pilot the use of S.H.E.D. Together, they worked hard to ensure that S.H.E.D was fit for purpose to deliver a wide range of possible activities and configurations.Together they developed the concept and turned it into a touring, mobile, flatpack-able reality! Team S.H.E.D is now firmly in place an amazing intergenerational team of freelance artists, researchers and hobbyists ranging from 25-65 in age from cities of Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Derby.
As a result, S.H.E.D is a space that invites action through socially, politically and culturally charged practice. Its flexibility supports diversity, designs for dialogues and untold stories, from multidisciplinary fields, from and for all people, especially from those that usually do not have voice. You can now collaborate and co- create with S.H.E.D. We work with cultural venues and public providers to bridge the gap between the arts and higher education.
S.H.E.D was launched in July 2019 and visited arts and cultural festivals.
So far, S.H.E.D has been visited various locations across Derby from city centre, to car parks to school playgrounds. It has presented work at Nottingham Contemporary, visited Lincoln to host a show at LPAC and been seen by over 2000 members of the public, had over 800 visitors and 1,500 in a single day at ThisisDerby Celebration Event. It was visited by more than 650 audience members during DepartureLounge a three-day arts festival . S.H.E.D has featuring work from 30 international artists and hosted 13 sold-out shows. S.H.E.D has hosted performances by Third Angel and Michael Pinchbeck - events for InDialogue at Nottingham Contemporary with over 150 delegates, and embarked on a 4 week 5 school tour for This is Derby: Reimagine in 2019 working with Derby Theatre, Deda, BabyPeople, EMCAN, Sinfonia Viva, Quad, ArtcoreUK. It has been supported by EMCAN, Primary, University of Derby, In Good Company, Derby County Community Trust who continue to support the project for 2020/21 and new partners CHEAD, HighRiseProject,Leeds. Nottingham Playhouse, New Perspectives, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Walk The Plank, InDialogue, National Justice Museum, DerbyFeste, Derby County Community Trust, ThisisDerby:reimagine, TheGlassTank, Oxford.
S.H.E.D is the creative of Dr Rhiannon Jones's, artist researcher from University of Derby, School of Arts, who is looking at how we create spaces for dialogue and how we as a society go to places and interact with those places and with one another. Her research investigates how we use artistic practice as a strategy to help people to find ways to talk. S.H.E.D invites curiosity and provokes discussion. Its unrivalled success is down to the communities that transform it and engage with it in order to create a platform for conversation. It plays in the space between art and the everyday. It is particularly attractive to younger audiences and otherwise disengaged groups who might prove difficult to engage in research and consultation.
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