Black Country Digital Firsts: Holly Doron
Selected artists from the Black Country are harnessing digital skills and mentoring through Black Country Digital Firsts; a partnership between Creative Black Country and The Space. We’ve been working with our first group of creatives during 2024 and will be rolling out a second cohort in 2025 (more details coming soon). For this series of blog posts we are introducing the folks who have joined us on the first round of mentoring sessions and workshops as they begin to develop their digital commissions.
Holly Doron explores how CoLab Dudley’s collaboration with Black Country Digital Firsts is shaping the Dudley Time Portal—a bold, tech-driven archive inspiring cultural democracy, climate action, and community-led innovation in Dudley.
What inspired you to apply for Black Country Digital Firsts and how did you hope it would impact your creative practice?
We were already developing an archive of Dudley-based knowledge, imaginings and creative action with a Community Technologist, but we were curious about how we could stretch our knowledge and creativity around technology to lift the archive in everyday physical places through, for example, augmented reality. We wanted to connect with other creatives in Dudley experimenting with technology and hopefully collaborate on the archive.
Can you share a little about the project you are working on and why you feel it’s particularly bold or imaginative?
CoLab Dudley are collaborating with community technologists, Common Knowledge, over the next 3 years to co-create the Dudley Time Portal for the Dudley People's School for Climate Justice:
- A living archive of creative artefacts and experiments from the past, present and future of Dudley Borough.
- A digital commons to be shared and stewarded by the Dudley Borough community.
- Digital infrastructure to inspire community-led social innovation, collective imagination and cultural and climate action.
How do you believe fostering digital creativity can contribute to the cultural landscape of the Black Country?
We are curious about building a ritual between digital and physical cultural activity, to create many entry points towards cultural democracy: paying attention to who gets to create culture and as a way of deepening our connection as nature / more-than-human through the provocation of 100 year living archive.
What has been the most valuable lesson or insight you've gained from the mentoring and advice sessions provided through Black Country Digital Firsts?
There are many wonderful types of technology that local folk can be invited to engage with and inspire ideas for how we might creatively experiment with digital technology.
In what ways do you think Black Country Digital Firsts can amplify diverse voices and perspectives within the Black Country?
There’s potential to connect networks of creatives with different lived experiences, skills share, and provide a platform for collective support and collaboration.
How do you now envision the role of technology in enhancing your creative practice going forward?
There is more confidence to talk about and experiment with technology in our creative gatherings, embedding it with our climate action work and connecting with nature / more-than-human.
What advice would you give to other creatives in the region who are considering applying for the second round of Black Country Digital Firsts?
Share and connect the learning - create opportunities to share the wisdom shared by mentors with your wider community - we invited tech specialists to share their knowledge with local folk, to see what possibilities, experiment ideas and potential collaborations could emerge from this for a 100 year living archive.
Black Country Digital Firsts is a unique partnership between Creative Black Country and The Space that aims to build digital creative confidence, inspire excellence in the area, foster digital creativity, commission artists, and offer creative support via mentoring and advice sessions.