Institute of Imagination

Ten years of creative learning, making and experimentation

My time at the Institute of Imagination was a huge part of developing the creative practice I have today. Across ten years, I designed and delivered STEAM programmes, workshops, festivals, learning spaces and large-scale creative experiences for children, families, educators and communities. I worked across art, science and digital technology, collaborating with artists, educators, cultural organisations and creative partners to explore how imagination can shape the way people learn

Projects

How My Practice Developed

Creative Experience Design

I developed and delivered large-scale learning environments, festivals, workshops, residencies and programmes for children, families, schools and communities.

This taught me to think about the whole experience: how people enter a space, what draws them in, the materials and technologies they encounter, how they move between activities, and where there is room for choice, curiosity and discovery.

Creative Content & Programme Design

I worked with partners including Tate Modern & Britain, Wellcome, LEGO, Rolls Royce,British Council and creative organisations to turn exhibitions, themes, research and ideas into hands-on learning experiences.

I developed workshop content, STEAM activities, resources and longer programmes using everything from robotics, coding and electronics to animation, engineering, making and immersive technology, finding playful ways for audiences to engage with complex ideas.

Facilitation & Training

I facilitated hundreds of experiences with children, families, teachers, educators, artists, corporates, and community groups, while also developing and training teams to deliver programmes themselves.

This shaped my approach to constructionism, tinkering, questioning and learning through doing, creating spaces where people can experiment, collaborate, make mistakes, adapt ideas, reflect and learn from one another.

A large part of my practice is turning early ideas into products, resources and experiences that genuinely work for the people using them. I work through a process of research, ideation, prototyping, testing, observing and refining, often co-creating with children, educators, artists and partner organisations along the way.

This has included developing both physical and digital outputs, from hands-on learning tools and workshop resources to online courses, videos and digital content.

Prototyping, Testing & Co-Design

iOi Projects

  • Cardboard Lab Live

    I worked with schools, families, artists and creative partners to develop and deliver Cardboard Lab Live — a large-scale making experience exploring sustainability, engineering, imagination and play through one everyday material: cardboard.

    Across the schools programme, 360 children worked alongside cardboard artists and facilitators to design and build robotic arms, marble runs, automata and large-scale dens, experimenting with structure, movement and problem-solving through hands-on making.

    For the family weekend, we expanded the experience to welcome around 600 people, introducing giant den building with Makedo tools, VR, cardboard cutting and collaborative stacking sculptures. Together, families transformed the space through building, experimenting and creating at scale.

    At its heart, Cardboard Lab Live was a free, experimental making environment — permitting people to test ideas, take creative risks and discover just how far imagination and engineering can take a simple piece of cardboard.

  • Lambeth Sparks Projects

    Lambeth Sparks was a three-year programme funded by the Walcot Foundation, designed to build digital confidence, creativity and making skills with children and families across Lambeth.

    Working across the Imagination Lab, Loughborough and Streatham, we built relationships with local communities and supported cohorts of around 30 children, with a focus on those receiving free school meals and from marginalised communities.

    At the heart of the programme was a Tinkering Club exploring coding, electronics and digital literacy through micro:bits, Makey Makey, buzz wires, light-up wands, light boxes and VR coding with CoSpaces.

    Alongside this, we designed large family days with creative partners around themes including silliness, giant automata, flight, aerodynamics and SEND collaboration.

    The programme was about more than technology — it created repeated opportunities for children and families to build confidence, experiment, make and see themselves as part of digital creativity

  • Imagine If… Festival × Tate Britain

    The Institute of Imagination and Tate Britain collaborated to create Imagine If…, a large-scale art and technology festival that welcomed more than 2,000 visitors and transformed seven gallery spaces into interactive environments for making, experimentation and play.

    Working across the galleries, we developed hands-on experiences combining creative technology, coding, robotics, light and touch-responsive art, bringing new forms of participation into the museum and inviting families to engage with the collection in unexpected ways.

    It was the first large-scale takeover of its kind within Tate Britain’s gallery spaces, creating an opportunity for visitors not simply to look at art, but to make, experiment, interact and become part of the experience themselves.

  • Our Brains and Us × Wellcome Trust

    I worked on Our Brains and Us, a collaborative programme with Wellcome Collection exploring the different ways our brains think, learn, imagine and experience the world.

    We transformed Wellcome’s Hub into an immersive creative environment where children, young people, families and educators explored the mind through coding, virtual reality, circuits, sound, movement, making and tinkering. The programme was designed to celebrate different ways of thinking and learning, using playful, multi-sensory experiences to make complex ideas about the brain accessible and participatory.

    Across the programme, around 720 children, young adults, teachers and parents took part. It was a strong example of bringing together science, creativity, technology and inclusive experience design to create different ways for people to engage, explore and learn together.

  • Creativity + Micro:bit × British Council

    Working with the British Council and the Institute of Imagination, I helped design and deliver a micro:bit programme in Madrid bringing together teacher training, digital skills and hands-on learning with students.

    We delivered a two-day training programme for teachers and education stakeholders, exploring how micro:bits could be used creatively in the classroom through coding, physical computing, making and problem-solving. The focus was not simply on learning the technology, but on giving educators the confidence and practical ideas to use it with their own students.

    Alongside the training, we worked directly with young people through a micro:bit hackathon, using creativity, design thinking and coding to develop and prototype ideas in response to challenges.

    The project brought together professional development and student learning, demonstrating how creative technology can build confidence, collaboration, digital literacy and imaginative problem-solving.