IN CONVERSATION WITH
Creative women in conversation
We're super excited to have some very talented women share their journey into creative industry & artistic practice in the spirit of inspiring the next generation.
Dr Bex Gamble - host
Dr Rebecca Gamble is a Senior Lecturer in Product Design and the Course Leader for MA Design: Products and Furniture and MSc Design: Products and Technology, in the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University. She is involved in course reviews, curriculum development and reaccreditations, undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, module and course leadership, industry liaison, research, PhD supervision and manages the degree shows for the department.
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Rebecca is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and gained the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2022. She is the School’s Athena Swan (gender equality) Champion, a member of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and mentors externally to support the development of women in leadership in the creative industries.
Laura North - Art director & Stylist
Laura is an interiors stylist of over 12 years, predominantly working in the commercial sector, helping clients to sell through imagery. She is known for composed and balanced styling, her knowledge of colour and her creativity of thought. And aside from props, sketchbooks and snacks, always brings organisation and humour to a shoot.
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She is also one half of LauraLaura Studio, a creative content duo offering smaller scale designers and makers photography, styling and production in one - and just as importantly, a female led and friendly experience.
Vicky Best - Filmmaker
''I'm a Manchester-born, Bolton-bred, working-class, mixed-race, filmmaker. I studied filmmaking at Kingston University and graduated in 2022. The complexities of my own identity found it’s way boldly into my films with each being an act of discovery. Observational documentary filmmaking is what I have favoured most in my practice. I have always been drawn to the intimacy and proximity between filmmaker and subject. But I am open to and have experimented with different forms of moving image, mixed mediums and genres. In this post university space I am keen not to box myself in just yet, if ever.
I was awarded the Northern Heart Doc Fund in 2022 and made my first professional documentary 'A Light is Always On' which has been selected for festivals across the country and was part of the 2024 Open Exhibition at Home in Manchester. At the time of SeekOut I will have just finished directing my first short fiction film. And will be anticipating the first screening of my experimental micro short 'Where Did All the Cool Go?''s at the Sound and Vision: Short Film Open Mic Night at ActOne Cinema in early August.''
Marjan Wouda - Artist & Sculptor
"I make sculptures mostly of animals. The underlying theme in all my work, however, is the human experience. Animals are used, like characters in a dream or story, to explore and give expression to it. I love their infinitely varied forms and the power of their image. Nursery rhymes, proverbs and stories all use this same process, and I often visit these literary sources to find the right animal for what it is I need to look into. Often too, these stories serve as a starting point for series of pieces such as the fox and the cockerel from Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, or the characters populating nursery rhymes (such as Old Mother Hubbard’s dog.)
Besides exploring these layers of meaning, I engage with the material (be it clay, wax, cardboard, bronze or steel) in a way that is forever playful and never predictable. Each piece is open ended; the material is allowed its voice and each sculpture is an adventure. The surfaces thus arrived at are testament to the process of creation, revealing layers of imprinted texture, drawing and re-drawing."