3rd June 2016

Making Waves: Q&A with Makerversity’s Ursula Davies

As the MD of Makerversity – the Somerset House workspace and support hub for makers of all stripes – Ursula Davies is basically wonderwoman. Alongside her role managing a pioneering community of more than 60 making businesses and ‘kick-starting the third industrial revolution’, she also found the time to develop and direct Makerversity’s experimental MV Works programme, which has been running for the last seven months.

In that time, MV Works has nurtured, guided and inspired nine hand-picked maker groups and individuals, enabling them to work on a diverse array of hybrid art-tech projects and offering invaluable support in the form of targeted mentoring, group critique, production assistance and strategic business guidance.

As the participants of MV Works prepare to lift the lid on their projects and the processes behind them with a special showcase at Somerset House – Into the Wild on 9–12 June – we thought it was the perfect time to ask Ursula how things had gone…

How does the MV Works programme fit into the wider remit of Makerversity?

Makerversity exists to support makers. We currently do that through providing space and making facilities and convening great communities of people. Running a more formal support programme has been something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, so in many ways MV Works feels like a natural extension to our day-to-day business, and we’re planning to continue with the programme in some way beyond this first one.

Also, everyone on MV Works is developing projects where the making aspect is very interesting and often very challenging technically – so obviously given what we do it’s amazing to have that kind of work happening in our space.

What has surprised you the most about the how the programme has progressed?

We’ve approached it as an experiment all the way along, so you’re expecting surprises in a way with that mindset. Perhaps one thing that I’m continually surprised and delighted by is the sheer complexity of the making process behind everyone’s projects and the strength of their commitment to developing very specific tools and techniques that allow them to make the work they want to.

The success of MV Works is obviously dependent on what the participants learn, but what have you and Makerversity as a whole learned as a result of running it?

So much. We’ve used the programme to trial different methods of one-to-one support – personal coaching, business coaching, expert technical support, PR and promotion advice. Getting to see the results of that and work with a whole range of different experts to support people in different ways, has been invaluable.

I would say Makerversity’s DNA is more rooted in design and engineering, so it’s been really interesting having some fine artists on the programme and seeing how they develop and present their work in comparison to other, more applied, creative projects. We’ve also learnt a lot about how to bring a group of people with different motivations and creative practices together but also give them freedom to do their own thing too.

What have been the most inspiring moments, for you?

Seeing everyone show their work at the crits, without a doubt. Although those are probably the hardest moments too!

Is there anything you’d do differently next time?

As the premise of MV Works was supporting people on their own terms, we’ve focused a lot on individual support. Next time I’d spend more time together as a group up front, probably with some external facilitation, to develop that side of things more. We’ve had a great dynamic within the group from the start; everyone has been really generous with their support for each other, but it’s been very much the dynamic of individuals coming together to share their work. I think it would be really interesting to see what would happen if you could support people to develop work together. But that’s probably a whole other programme!

Do you think the Makerversity approach could be successful for other institutions?

Definitely. It’s been a very simple, light-touch programme – that’s the secret of it. I think the challenge is that that can feel a bit counterintuitive sometimes. When you’re running a programme for people it’s natural to want to programme, organise, fill up time with ‘interventions’ of various kinds and actually probably what’s most useful is not doing that. So anyone else wanting to run something similar would need to feel comfortable with an approach that might feel a bit uncomfortable at times. We’re very happy to share what we’ve learnt with anyone who’s interested!

Which project in the showcase do you think has progressed or evolved the most from its original pitch?

It’s impossible to pick one. Everyone has done amazing stuff over the programme and their projects have evolved massively in very different ways. You’ve got people like Mayku who’ve just had a fantastically successful Kickstarter, or Tom Armitage, who last week showed us a totally new version of Twinklr, a digital musical instrument. I could go on…

I think one of the projects everyone has enjoyed seeing progress is the Common Works animation, which has stuck very closely to the original pitch. It’s a complex technical project with a really beautiful creative output and to be sure of being able to make it, they’ve had to develop it in an incredibly organised way. I feel like it’s been really soothing experience for everyone to see the incremental development of that particular project at each of the crits, alongside their own more unruly charges!

Given that some of the participants don’t necessarily have a finished project to show, how do you communicate the work that they’ve done and the progress they’ve made in an exhibition format?

The exhibition presents the process alongside the outcome. In some cases, the work is not finalised but it is presented in its current state as ‘working prototype’. In terms of the process, visitors will be able to discover different stages, from mocks to contributions to videos of the making. Showing process alongside work is an unconventional exhibition format by which we aim to explore these new hybrid practices and question the new modes of production and distribution of the nine projects.

What do you want visitors to the showcase to come away thinking?

That the labels of design, art, tech and making shouldn’t define how you see yourself or where your work could be successful. We also want to provide a challenge to people to really think about what sustainable practice means and the financial aspect of that too.

Above all, respect and excitement for the bravery, imagination and technical capabilities of participants – they’re doing stuff that’s at the boundaries of what’s possible and that’s really, really hard work.

Above 1: Exhibition details for the show next week, Below 2: Ursula Davies, MD at Makerversity, 3: Mayku will be presenting their Formbox, 4: A test cut from the animation by Commonworks.