Jo Townshen
JT: Jo Townshen
INT :Interviewer
INT: Can you introduce yourself and spell your name?
JT: t’s Jo Townsend and it’s j-o then t -o -w -n -s -h -e -n-d , Townshend
INT: Where are you from Jo?
JT: So, I’m from England, working in London as a Principal Partnerships Manager at University College London.
INT: What’s the relationship between what you do and with Rosetta and its 30th anniversary?
JT: Well, I’ve had to privilege to work with colleagues across Rosetta possibly since I began working at UCL which began in 2017 and it’s really interested to see how the university could engage with Partners in Newham. We were aware that the New Campus would be developing sometime in the future and the future is now so, so it was interesting to think of who was doing really good work and really good in the borough. I was interested in the work Rosetta was doing and had an introduction to Sanaz who was involved with knowledge exchange and partner opportunities between colleagues across the university and with Rosetta and with the work Rosetta and with the work Rosetta has led with Creative Newham as well.
INT: Could you explain two of those initiatives or projects?
JT: Mmm so, when I connect and work with Rosetta, my role is to listen carefully to what has identified the need for, the artist and the creative and em, creative communities around the borough or in the location around Rosetta and then trying to develop an understandings of how we create research opportunity across the University, whether that’s in arts and humanities, anthropology, em, creative health areas, whichever they may be, to try and to see where the synergies are, where could good things come together and happen and, eh, find the opportunity to bring people together to develop those conversations, share knowledge and set either projects in work or develop ongoing relationships, so they can develop them, and so that’s the university is having connections and meaning and have a reason to show its research or develop research. Our staff or students could work with colleagues in the borough or they could make something themselves, and they can all work together and develop great work.
INT: Who are these creatives, do you mean students or the community at large?
JT: Both really, because it depends. I really like working with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary partnership so, it may be with, trying to think, maybe when we’ve done some work with Helen Chatterjee who leads health well-being at the University and she comes from a life sciences background, but she is interested in how creative practice, whether it might be, photography, painting or ceramics- whatever it might be, how that affects people’s well-being and what are the positive impacts of people joining a workshop, doing regularly weekly get togethers or coming together to have a coffee in a creative workspace. So, she’s monitoring that from an academic point of view trying to advocate on behalf of the arts and demonstrate – this is really good for your health, we must be involved in practice and for Rosetta, I believe this has the opportunity to create the evidence so they can be supported, attract funding for the people that want to come here and use the facilities and make and paint and do.
INT: How do you evidence art and well-being terms of an evaluation or outcome?
JT: Well, they do they do a psychosocial bio evaluation, which has a particular formula that they use and it covers many different sides of your well-being. So, it covers your emotional response, it covers your actual health and your heart rate might lower, so you might feel more relaxed and that might reduce anxiety or stressing your life, it might be the moment where you get into a creative state of flow in your mind and you forget about all the worries and concerns and responsibilities of your everyday life, and it gives you that time and space just to relax, and then it might actually revaluate as, eh, developing skills you might engage with as a group activity that you might then, em, develop more skills, develop more confidence you may have different outcomes that are unimagined as you started doing painting, or whatever, that might be. So, there is a whole range, those are some examples that I can just think of now, but there’s a formula in education that creates quite a robust system of evaluation that they use in the research council sand that they use with different funding bodies as well, I so it has that impact.
INT: Arts and well-being, is traditional faculty or is it something that is relatively new in the history of the university?
JT: It’s very new and its only in recent years that creative health and well-being, arts and well-being, these considerations are actually moving forward and being taken very seriously because of their positive impact on the way that we live our lives, especially in most recent, years working through the pandemic. It is being found people that take part in creative arts, whether individually on your own or who are in a group, this really has benefits for your health, so it’s important as well as it just being a pleasure and being fun thing regardless of the quality of the output; whether you’re a highly skilled painter or a ceramicist, that’s almost irrelevant in this sort of area of development, and at UCL there are now, not only degree courses, that students can study, but there’s now a master’s degree that’s being developed and I know Rosetta is a partner on that course, and that’s been delivered at the new UCL East campus in Newham. So, after initial conversations that happened five six years ago ,we are now seeing students apply to be on the courses where that collaboration has seeded into a long-term relationship between the two organisations.
INT: What will that qualify them to do?
JT: Well, course has only just started, so I may be looking, into the future here with a bit of a crystal ball, but they would be able to go and work in the arts sphere, in the social work sphere, is social care sphere, there are new areas of social prescribing that are being developed alongside traditional medical health care and it’s anticipated that this will become an increasingly popular area to maintain everyone’s’ health and well-being and keeping yourself off prescribed medications instead, So, there’s a whole new field that’s opening up the development in that space and, really, partnerships really wonderful to know that these early conversations and partnerships began here in Newham.
INT: For the accreditation of prior learning, would you be looking for artists or those with a medical background to develop that master’s programme?
JT: It’s abroad entry level so there is no one route into those courses, and I think because it’s so new I think it’s really interesting to see who is coming you know who what people are coming in with that ambition to work in this area and I think it covers a whole cross section cross section of ages, a cross section of backgrounds
INT: Is this a product of COVID?
JT: I think that in recent times that mental health has become a large problem in society. I think COVID has made that and even greater concern, so I think there was interest and a need for this area to develop and grow and an expertise that needed to be developed in this area, but now it’s essential. I think it’s a really, really important area.
INT: How would you like the partnership between Rosetta Arts and UCL to move forward?
INT: I think there are many ways that this partnership can move forward. There are lots of things that students and staff at UCL can learn from Rosetta. I think their leadership in working with the community, in going out and meeting people that may not wish, or know, or have thought about engaging either within Rosetta’s offer or UCL’s offer, that actually to go out and chat and talk and just share information and knowledge and make knowledge accessible to people. It’s really vital and something that the university wants to do and I think Rosetta is a just shining beacon as an example of doing that work brilliantly, and connecting people and really generously connecting, bringing people together and people going away with new networks, shared experiences, new knowledge that then goes out and expands out. So, It’s a hub! It’s a hub that does good things and sets things in motion. I think it’s an interesting piece of work to think of where do all those good connections go, what do they lead to and where have they gone? I think the university is come in at one point certainly built many more creative opportunities as the way that it’s engaged with the broader group of creative Newham, so that’s working with a lot more partners again and that’s come through Rosetta and hosting that group here. So, it’s a way of building relationships and bridges right across to the new university partner and its colleagues new to the area and generously sharing those friends and neighbours that have got existing knowledge of each other and just sharing them across as well.
INT: Given the demographics of the new Campus, who is the demographic for the joint work that you are doing?
JT: Gosh, it’s probably grown beyond my knowledge which is you know a sign that it’s working well. It’s taken life ,you know, I’ve done directing introductions as I said to creative health and well-being, but also to the Slade School of fine art and the connections there to an area of the university called UCL culture where it supported programmes called Trellis where academics from across the university have been introduced to artists and then they’ve gone off and creates their own programmes and had funding to do so that has led to exhibition opportunities. That’s an ongoing relationship between the two of those.. With the new School for Creative and Cultural Industries at UCL East, there’s more work going on there through anthropology ,and I believe media. I’ve got a sense there’s an awful lot else that’s moved off ,and through neuroscience. I can remember there was something, so yes, more than I can remember.
INT: Do you think art can exist for art’s sake now that it’s become, almost, an applied science?
JT: What a great question! I think it can. I think the great thing about art is it can be so many things to so many people in all different ways in all different places and all different times, so what I find really exciting is that people can come in any stage and any age and find an interest or a love of stuff, whether that be a pen or a bit of paint, whatever that might be ,and it can be meaningful and you know for me it change my life. I’ve seen that for others and I think whether it’s in the scientific domain or if it’s in the arts domain, I think both are really valid and are ever-changing.
INT: As you may or may not know, the organisation is changing its leadership to a new CEO. What single piece that’s possible single piece of advice would you him ?
JT: I would say build on the great foundations that you can work with. I would say tell the stories of what else you would like and talk to as many people as possible that will be able to join you on that journey.
INT: Is there anything else you would like to say?
JT: I’d say it’s an absolute pleasure always coming here to visit Rosetta. Everyone in the team is always fantastic and generous with their time, their support, their energy. I think it’s infectious! I think it does, it make good things happen. That’s underpinned with seriously hard work, but it’s a partnership and collaboration that I’m really proud to have been involved in.
