Black Country Digital Firsts: The Dorothy Parkes Centre
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.
The Dorothy Parkes Centre combines community connection and digital innovation with a storytelling project that transforms mugs and food bags into gateways for shared narratives, fostering creativity and technological confidence.
What inspired you to apply for Black Country Digital Firsts and how did you hope it would impact your creative practice?
We’re a local community centre committed to being a place of welcome and opportunity for all. We’re supported by external agencies to provide most of our creative offer and we were keen to do more for ourselves. We hoped that applying to the Black Country Digital Firsts would help us to realise that ambition. We would like to develop skills that will enable us to create and offer further projects in the future, with this being the legacy of the funding.
Can you share a little about the project you are working on and why you feel it’s particularly bold or imaginative?
Our work with the local community has shown us that everyone has a story to tell. We wanted to capture some of these stories and share them in a new way. When people visit the centre, they always receive a warm welcome and often a hot drink. With this in mind, we decided to use a mug as a way of accessing a story rather than the traditional method of reading it in a book.
We felt this would spark an interest in listening to the stories which have been recorded. When our project launches, visitors to our centre will see a sentence from a story printed on the mug of their hot drink. If they want to know more, a QR code, which will be printed on the mug can be scanned. This will take them to the full story, recorded in the storyteller’s own voice.
We feel that using this method of accessing a story is something new and different. It is not something we have ever had at the centre before, and it will encourage people who are not tech-savvy to use technology with support from our volunteer and staff team. It will enhance their IT skills and make accessing services in this way feel less daunting.
The centre has an award-winning Community Allotment which is used not only to grow food which is shared with the local community but is also used for theatre productions, poetry workshops, supporting young people at risk and other community support groups. We will ensure that there is a supply of mugs available in the summer house at the allotment to enable the stories to leave the centre and travel, sharing the stories with even more people.
We are in the process of setting up a community fridge at the centre. This project will be used to distribute surplus food to the community. This is open to all with its main aim being to reduce food waste . This new project will also play a part in the storytelling project, in that, brown paper pages will be used to take food home with each bag having a QR code printed on it which will lead the person to recorded stories. Again, this method will give other people the opportunity to listen to the stories, enabling the stories to travel far and wide, not just with people coming into the centre.
How do you believe fostering digital creativity can contribute to the cultural landscape of the Black Country?
Digital creativity can help to increase reach by taking services and arts to wider audiences in more accessible ways. It can add an extra dimension to an art project, making it more relevant and interesting to today’s society.
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 benefits to working collaboratively, not just the practical experience and skills that are offered but also the benefit of having a wide range of perspectives committed to making the project as exciting as possible.
In what ways do you think Black Country Digital Firsts can amplify diverse voices and perspectives within the Black Country?
It can support building digital capability, building networks and bringing projects to new audiences.
How do you now envision the role of technology in enhancing your creative practice going forward?
Using technology to be creative is new to us but we're keen to develop our capabilities so that we can reach new audiences in new ways. We already have ideas for a second, heritage phase of our current storytelling project.
What advice would you give to other creatives in the region who are considering applying for the second round of Black Country Digital Firsts?
Just go for it! Our practical advice would be to try to boldly convey your creative ambitions in your application. Even if you don't yet have a clear idea of your ‘how’ put across your ‘why' and the impact you would expect it to make.
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.