The Storey Gallery is an artist-centred publicly-funded gallery which commissions, promotes and presents innovative and challenging practice in visual art by nationally and internationally significant artists. All activity is centred around engagement with audiences, and aims to stimulate critical thought, debate and reflection. Storey Gallery is normally located within the Storey Institute in Lancaster. This building is currently undergoing refurbishment to become a centre for creative industries. The refurbished building will house Storey Gallery, Litfest, other arts organisations, Lancaster Tourist Information Centre, a wide variety of creative businesses, and a café/restaurant.

John is keen to pursue research into connectivity, collaboration and support between public cultural organisations and commercial creative businesses, and development for their mutual benefit. This topic is becoming increasingly important, particularly in relation to the rapid expansion of the creative and knowledge economy. As creativity is the driver for these developments, knowledge about its effective use and dissemination between artists, cultural organisations and the creative industries could lead to economic benefits, job creation, and financial development. However, it appears that information on this area is slight. The proposed research would be able to examine and contribute to the understanding of such developments, locally, nationally and even internationally, and to reflect upon the complexity of realising these cultural and economic ambitions in specific local contexts. The Storey would provide an ideal site for such research as it encompasses both public and commercial creative activities. He trained in biology, gained a PhD in genetics, and undertook postdoctoral research. He has worked in the visual arts as practitioner, researcher, curator, etc for 30 years.


Website: www.storeygallery.org.uk/blog

Email: john AT storeygallery.org.uk