SLiCE® Case Study: Naomi Lord
Unlocking joyful ambition for self and the communities of young people we serve
Thursday 19 February
Tell us about your experience of SLiCE®
I was part of the 2019/20 SLiCE cohort as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The impetus to explore, improve and radically rethink cultural access for young people became acute. Working with Manchester International Festival, our initial motivation was to connect children and young people to their places and spaces, to co-design and produce cultural activity that was representative of themselves, designed to engage their peers and that thoughtfully engaged their local contexts.
We pivoted to weekly online sessions, working with the MIF team, a heritage expert, an art therapist and invited cultural professionals from film, fashion and photography backgrounds. We used the time for a deep dive into personal experience, habitual places and the hyperlocal, converted this into artforms and ideas for youth-led activities in public spaces and planned to get together to bring our ideas to life as Greater Manchester emerged from lockdown.
Looking back, how has SLiCE informed or impacted your work since completing the programme?
SLiCE wholesale reinvigorated my approach to school and community cultural education. From session to whole-setting design, my approach is generated from a place of care and relevance, informed and co-designed with young people, and includes inbuilt progression through creative health, skills and dispositions, often in partnership with arts professionals to guide access to cultural sector employability.
COVID-19 online sessions developed into youth-takeover of vacant shops in Bolton and today, Creatives Now exists as a community studio-gallery space for Bolton, underpinned by youth governance. Creatives Now provides free visual arts, theatre and film workshops, connecting school-based activity to live, local, networked opportunities.
What would you say to someone who is thinking about applying?
The SLiCE programme is an investment in personal capacity to design, hold and manage relevant, care-full, networked and ambitious arts and cultural opportunities for children and young people. The programme is as creative as it is challenging in all the right places! It unlocks joyful ambition for self and the communities of young people we serve.
SLiCE provides the time, space and the support of generous expertise for the development of personal practice and cultural education design that places children and young people at its heart.
Curious to know more?
If you’re interested to read more about SLiCE, and apply to be in our 2026/27 cohort, see below.
