Research
MeshWorks designs, delivers and manages international arts-based research programmes. As well as offering high quality monitoring and evaluation, we work with artists, academics, communities and policy makers around the world to generate new perspectives on the creative and cultural industries.
Research Focus: Impact and the Creative and Cultural Industries
MeshWorks produces cutting-edge research exploring the social, cultural and economic value and impact of the creative and cultural industries.
Most recently, this included undertaking research with British Council teams from around the world, producing case studies exploring the impact of their global Creative Economy programme. This work builds on MeshWorks’ research that focuses on Reimagining the Role, Impact and Value of Contemporary Festivals in Sub-Saharan Africa and Poppy Spowage’s doctoral research Producing Performance, Producing Atmosphere: Looking Beyond Development in the Production of Art and Performance in East Africa, which explores the affective, collective and material importance of a vibrant, diverse and dynamic creative sector.
Research Focus: Imagining new forms of Cultural Production
MeshWorks produces innovative research exploring more ethical and equitable ways of producing, managing and financing international arts and cultural exchange work.
In 2023, MeshWorks Director Poppy Spowage was awarded a CREDO fellowship from the University of Sienna to investigate new models of creative production, exploring how new technologies can be harnessed by creatives around the world. MeshWorks engages artists as researchers, working with them to understand their experiences and generate new perspectives - and solutions - on challenges facing the creative and cultural industries. This work builds on our work with Refraction Festival and exploring the potential application of web3/new technologies to support creative initiatives around the world. You can find out more about our experiences in harnessing technology for creative communities in Fostering Reciprocity in Artist Residencies.
Research Focus: Climate Action and the Cultural and Creative Industries
MeshWorks produces urgent research exploring connections between the creative sector and the climate crisis, specifically through the lens of artists from the global majority.
Since 2023, with People’s Palace Projects, Arts and Humanities Research Council and Department for Media, Culture and Sport, MeshWorks Director Poppy Spowage has been exploring the Future Directions of UK Cultural Heritage and Climate Change research. This has inspired ongoing research with the Off/Track Collective focused on the ways in which the sustainability drive risks excluding and further marginalising creatives from the global majority, and the ways we might think - together - about future directions.