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Biography
Appointed in March 2002 as the first Director of Nottingham Lakeside Arts, the University of Nottingham's public arts programme. Lakeside comprises the Djanogly Theatre (220 capacity), Djanogly Art Gallery & Angear Visitor Centre, Museum of Archaeology, and Djanogly Recital Hall (200 capacity), The Wallner and The Weston Galleries. Lakeside also has a Visual Artist in Residence Studio, and both a Visual Arts and Performing Arts Studio space used by the venue's many community and young people's groups, as well as providing creation spaces for new work. Whilst the Lakeside programme is very broad-based in its appeal, it has always had a strong commitment to presenting high quality work for children and families, and since 2005 has promoted international work for this audience as part of the annual Wheee! Festival.
Shona is a founding member of the East Midlands Children's Theatre Network, together with Déda (Derby) and the Spark Children's Arts Festival, which together seek to source and lead in the touring of quality work for children and families in the region to include venues in Spalding, Lincoln, Buxton, Northampton and Corby as well as the original three, taking international and UK to new audiences in the region. She supported two phases of the Inside Out of Mind partnership with the Institute of Mental Health and Meeting Ground Theatre Company, successfully applying for strategic touring funding for a national tour in 2015, and subsequent distribution of a live theatre recording which is used to date as a training and development tool for health sector workers caring for people with dementia. She established the professional development programme for members of Nottingham New Theatre leading to a successful co-production with New Theatre annually; and co-led the development of the first tri-campus arts programme in the UK in 2015, leading to second and third year developments in Malaysia & China respectively. Shona has commissioned a number of artist-led interventions and performances including the 2017 Chinese New Year digital projections on the Trent building Jixiang (Propitious); and Lido to Lakeside in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Djanogly Gallery / founding of Lakeside arts.
Shona was Chair of MOKO Dance in 2014-2017; she is a board member of Cultivate-EM; and was Chair of Déda (Derby) 2003-2010; and until 2012 a board member of The Egalitarian Trust (Galleries of Justice). She is also a member of the Strategic Cultural Partnership, the Cultural Education Partnership, and Ticketing Network East Midlands.
Before moving to Nottingham, Shona was for 10 years founding Director of The Lemon Tree, a multi‑arts venue in Aberdeen which combined a major touring programme with a strong education and access programme. During this time she was a member of a range of Scottish Arts Council Committees including Combined Arts, Capital and New Directions Lottery Committees. She was a Board Member of Dance Productions, and until moving to Nottingham was a member of the Advisory Group for Scottish Dance Theatre.
Shona was awarded an OBE for services to Arts and Education in the 2017 New Year Honours List.
Expertise Summary
Theatre and dance programming, co-curation and co-commissioning
Festival and special events organisation and programming
Strategic arts planning,development and delivery
Professional development projects with Nottingham New Theatre Arts centre management and development
Partnership and network touring regionally and nationally
Board Membership of national and regional arts organisations