Our team spans multiple organisations, we have different areas of specialism, and we don’t all work on every project in the same way/role – or at all! Find out more about us below.

Dr Emma Coffield

Lecturer, School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University

Emma is the programme lead for the Art Museum and Gallery Studies MA at Newcastle University, and contributes to teaching across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Her research is situated at the intersection between museum studies, art history and cultural sociology – with a particular focus on the literatures and practices of artist-run initiatives, ‘meanwhile’ space, the sociology of work in the cultural and creative industries, and employability. Emma was the Principle Investigator (PI) for MTMS I, MTMS II, MTM Collaborations and the Clayton Street Corridor.

Find out more: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/staff/profile/emmacoffield.html

Dr Paul Richter

Lecturer in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Newcastle University

Paul has been involved in various policy and practice-oriented research projects over the last fifteen years funded by the AHRC, ESRC, EPSRC, and the EU. Paul’s current research interests centre on innovation and entrepreneurship trends as they relate to a number of practice settings, including the cultural and creative sectors. Conceptually, Paul is interested in the relationship between organisation and subjectivity, and the function of language and materiality in constituting those phenomena. Paul was a Co-Investigator for MTMS I and MTMS II and a team member for MTM Collaborations and the Clayton Street Corridor.

Rebecca Huggan

Director, The NewBridge Project

Rebecca Huggan is the Director of The NewBridge Project, an active and vibrant artist-led community in Newcastle and Gateshead. Established in 2010, The NewBridge Project supports artists, curators and local communities through the provision of space and an ambitious programme of exhibitions, commissions, events and artist development. NewBridge produces a programme that is responsive to the environment in which it exists, and that places community-centred, collaborative and socially conscious programming at its heart.

Rebecca has worked at NewBridge since 2014, becoming director in September 2018. Prior to this she worked on a number of freelance projects alongside local communities in Northumberland. Partners here included bait (Creative People and Places), Woodhorn Museum and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art. Rebecca has also worked for AV Festival, Northern Film and Media, Vane and Project Space Leeds. Rebecca was a Community Partner for MTMS I and MTMS II and a team member for MTM Collaborations and the Clayton Street Corridor.

Find our more at: https://thenewbridgeproject.com

David Butler

Senior Lecturer, Fine Art, Newcastle University

David Butler set up and runs the LifeWorkArt (LWA) professional development programme in Newcastle University’s Fine Art Department. LWA connects students with artists and arts organisations outside the university. David has been involved in researching strategies and resourcing for artists’ development since the 1980s with a current interest in how that impacts on students and recent graduates. David was a key collaborator for both MTMS I and II and a team member for MTM Collaborations and the Clayton Street Corridor.

Dr Rebecca Prescott

Senior Lecturer, Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University

Rebecca’s passion for research focuses on the relationship between place and (specifically creative) practice. Thanks to 10 years’ experience working across sectors as a practitioner, lecturer, researcher and consultant, she has a sustained, deep and extensive grounding in questions of creative practice and its relationship to wider issues of identity, inclusion and design. A core element of her research focuses on identifying the fundamental features of artist-led organisational development and the processes that both promote, and constrain, creative practice. Rebecca was a key collaborator for both MTMS I and II and a team member for MTM Collaborations and the Clayton Street Corridor.

Dr Tom Hopkin

Director, The Lubber Fiend

Tom is a founding member of The Lubber Fiend; a DIY venue aimed at supporting grassroots musicians in the North East of England, which received funding from Arts Council England via the ‘Supporting Grassroots Live Music’ project fund in 2021. Tom completed a PhD at Newcastle University that focussed on the marketisation of visual art organisations and the relationship between culture and democracy. He previously worked with Yorkshire Visual Arts Network on ‘The Idea of North’ project, which explored visual arts practice in the North of England and the varying contexts in which artists make and display their work.

Tom has worked as both a Research Assistant and spokesperson for MTMS, where he helped to identify future case-study organisations for the project and joined the team for the Clayton Street Corridor project.

Hannah Marsden

Post-Graduate Researcher, Media, Culture and Heritage, Newcastle University

Hannah’s research looks at alternative forms of value-construction and world-making practices in the field of social art.  She is a founding member and employee of Dwellbeing Shieldfield, a Community Benefit Society and cooperative which aims support members to play an active role in shaping life in their neighbourhood. This ongoing work emerged from an arts-based participatory research project exploring alternative ways of organising and knowledge-building around issues of land and urban development. 

In 2019, Hannah worked with The NewBridge Project and Solidarity Economy Association to initiate a process of mapping and strengthening the solidarity economy in and around Newcastle and Gateshead. In 2020, Hannah worked with environmental action group Kalpavriksh on Vikalp Sangam, a process for networking alternatives to the currently dominant model of development and governance in India.  

Hannah enjoys doing yoga, tending to plants, eating cake, and listening to stories. 

Daniel Newberry

Post-Graduate Researcher Newcastle University Business School

Daniel’s research primarily focuses on the environmental management of micro-enterprises within the UK and how to best support them to ensure a successful transition towards a greener economy. His PhD is interdisciplinary in nature, focusing on the analysis of factors that influence micro-enterprise engagement with environmental management through the lenses of entrepreneurship, identity, and individual attitudes of micro-enterprise owner-managers.

With a background in music, Daniel completed an MA in Arts, Business and Creativity with Newcastle University Business School and the School of Arts and Cultures from 2019-2021, working on a project in 2021 that investigated the influence of self-identity on the environmental behaviour of the self-employed within the North East’s Creative Industries.

Daniel is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and often collaborates with them on North East-based projects focusing on social innovation.

Dan Goodman

PhD researcher and tutor, Newcastle University / Curator, System Gallery

Dan is currently completing a Fine Art practice-based PhD at Newcastle University.  He is undertaking an autoethnographic study of artist-run initiative, System, with a focus on the forms of value which are generated for artists/practitioners in its everyday activity. Alongside his research and being System’s curator, Dan is a studio tutor in Newcastle University’s Fine Art department and works for Newcastle University’s Careers Service. He was a Research Assistant for MTMS II, where he helped bring together members of artist-run initiatives across the North-East in the co-development of the project’s feasibility study.

Find out more at https://dangoodman.co.uk/

Dr Alix Ferrer-Yulfo

Research Assistant, Newcastle University

Alix is an interdisciplinary researcher and museum professional specialising in intangible cultural heritage safeguarding and management. She holds a PhD in Media, Culture, Heritage from Newcastle University and an MA in Cultural Management from the University of Puerto Rico. Her current work explores how intangible cultural practices can be promoted and safeguarded through active community involvement, strategic partnerships and alternative forms of museum practice. Alix was the Research Assistant for MTM Collaborations. Alix is now a Postdoctoral Faculty Fellow at Syracuse University’s Museum Studies Program.

Dr Edward Wainwright

Lecturer, Architecture, Newcastle University

Ed is a lecturer, a researcher and designer exploring the intersections of architecture and culture, social and material change, and the politics of architectural and design production. His design interests are concerned with architecture’s relationship to fine art, spatial experience and radical ecological thinking. He has collaborated with artists and architects on large-scale installation projects and spatial research for national and international organisations and institutions, as well as collaborated within and managed interdisciplinary and inter-institutional artistically-led research projects. Ed contributed to MTMS I.

Dr Katie Markham

Lecturer in Media, Culture and Heritage, Newcastle University

Katie is a specialist in community museology, critical tourism studies and conflict, with added interest in critical race theory and decolonising practices. She is the author of a number of publications on this theme, including a 2019 International Journal of Heritage Studies article that explored photography, race and social justice in Cape Town’s District Six Museum. Her monograph, Community Museums, Tourism and Conflict in Northern Ireland is due for publication with Routledge in 2022. Katie was the Research Assistant for MTMS I.