iMayflower

iMayflower was designed to build Plymouth’s creative industries and nurture creative people power across the city. Delivered by a consortium comprising the University of Plymouth, Plymouth City Council, Destination Plymouth, Mayflower 400, Plymouth College of Art and Real Ideas, the project includes a £3.5 million grant from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Cultural Development Fund, which invests in creative, cultural and heritage initiatives that lead economic growth and productivity. This particular work keys into digital heritage and specifically working with people who are disadvantaged whilst visiting heritage sites. This research work has led onto working with health professionals who deal with trauma, using digital fabrication and immersive experiences to help their clients into recovery.

Current Practice

This research consists of a developmental sequence and installation of four large-scale experimental artefacts. The installation is intended to sit within the territory of art and design, and because of the original scanned artefacts elucidates questions around, identity, materiality, and the political implications inherent in heritage artifacts. These have been produced by working through an over-arching research question that investigates the creative potential of using 3D scanning and printing techniques (machine learning-IoT) not just to replicate/reproduce originals, but to transform scales and spaces and generate a new genre of design and sculptural artefact and assess its value.