Jess Steele OBE and Matt Baker | #1 Reimagining Carlisle
Reimagining Carlisle
With Matt Baker (The Stove Network) and Jess Steele OBE (Hastings Commons)
A unique opportunity to hear from two experts in place, culture and community reflect on the city of Carlisle.
Eden Arts is bringing together a group of cultural leaders and experts to help shape a visionary future for Carlisle in Cumbria. A select group will be invited to join us for a day of exploration, discussion, and inspiration as part of our ‘Bigger Picture’ project.
Reimagining Carlisle will bring together a small group of future change makers, alongside stakeholders and cultural leaders to imagine a future for the city.
The day will offer an alternative 'tour' of the city, viewing the highlights and potential through the eyes of the experts. This part of the day will begin at midday followed by a more focussed discussion lead by Matt Baker (The Stove Network, Dumfries) and Jess Steele (Hastings Commons). Following this the experts will lead a conversation about their area of expertise alongside how they perceive Carlisle now and in it's potential for the future.
Places are limited so please register your interest.
Matt Baker (The Stove Network)
Matt Baker is one of the founders and CEO of The Stove – an arts organisation working across Dumfries and Galloway to connect communities with creative people and projects - developing wider partnerships for action for places and the people that live in them. Matt has over 30 years experience as a public artist working predominantly in the regeneration field; leading the arts programme for the rebuilding of the Gorbals 1999-2005 and the re-imagining of Inverness city centre 2006-2011. Baker and The Stove have helped pioneer the contemporary practice of Creative Placemaking in Scotland and he served as co-chair of the National Partnership for Culture 2020-23.
Jess Steele OBE (Hastings Commons)
Jess Steele has over 30 years’ experience as a local community activist and entrepreneur in Deptford and Hastings and in national roles for membership networks like the British Urban Regeneration Association and Locality, including leading the development and delivery of the Meanwhile Project, the Campaign Against Delinquent Ownership, and the national Community Organisers programme. An active social entrepreneur over several decades, Jess has established community enterprises in publishing, heritage, tourism, childcare, financial management, neighbourhood development, workspace, and homes that are genuinely affordable in perpetuity.
Through her company Jericho Road Solutions, Jess specialises in supporting ambitious local projects to rescue and repurpose the most challenging of precious buildings across England and Wales. She was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Years Honours for services to community assets in the UK.
Jericho Road was a founder investor in the development of Hastings Commons, a community-led regeneration approach that has brought 8,500 square metres of difficult
and derelict buildings into community ownership to create homes, workspaces and environments where people can change their lives and improve their neighbourhood.
Jess is now the Chief Executive and Commoner-at-Large for Hastings Commons. Jess completed her PhD in ‘Self-Renovating Neighbourhoods as an alternative to gentrification or decline’ (University of Leicester) in April 2022.
