Turning empty buildings into hubs of creativity and innovation will be the focus of an event being held at the Muni Arts Centre in Pontypridd next week.
Empty Buildings in the Creative Industries is being hosted by the University of Glamorgan’s Centre for Policy and Enterprise in Creative Industries (PECi) and takes place on 31st March.
The event is part of the Media Industry Knowledge Exchange (MIKE) project funded by the Welsh Assembly Government’s Academics for Business (A4B) programme. Glamorgan is working in partnership with Swansea Metropolitan and Aberystwyth universities on this exciting initiative to promote knowledge exchange among academic centres of excellence in Wales and the creative sector.
Dr Gill Allard, who heads up PECi said, “MIKE will ensure that relevant research and development activities being undertaken by key HEIs across Wales are made accessible to businesses. It is intended to encourage, stimulate and promote creativity, innovation, and market development – all factors that are crucial for sustainability in the current economic climate.”
She continued, “This event is the first of many that will bring together people from the broad fields of creative industries development and incubation, cultural and social enterprise and location management as well as academics.”
Keynote speakers at the event include:
- Dr. Tom Fleming of Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy (http://www.tfconsultancy.co.uk/index.php), who’ll be making a scene-setting presentation with examples of ‘repurposed’ industrial buildings from an international perspective;
- Teo Greenstreet, recently of the Media Centre in Huddersfield, who will be making the case for emphasising people over buildings in such redevelopment; and
- John Mckernan and Julian Gardner of www.promo-cymru.org who will be presenting a case study of their redevelopment of Ebbw Vale Institute as a centre for local cultural and creativity development and regeneration.
The morning will comprise a series of interactive case study presentations with the afternoon given over to ‘work-shopping’ the issue. It is hoped that discussions during the workshops will lead to a number of projects relating to empty buildings getting off the ground.
