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The Fine Arts Innovation Factory played host to the annual Bolton schools Art exhibition from 29th June 2010.  Schools from across the borough: including Bolton Boys School, Bolton Girls School, TMAC, St. Catharine’s Academy, Firwood and many more came together to display the artistic endeavours of their talented Art students.

Bolton man and BBC Commissioning Editor, Aaqil Ahmed, paid tribute to the inventiveness and professionalism of University of Bolton students as he opened the Creative Degree Show.

He told industry guests at the opening ceremony last night (Thursday 17 June 2010) how he had been impressed with the students working with his teams at the BBC. Hundreds of students are exhibiting until June 23 at the University’s Deane Road campus, across all creative disciplines – from Animation and Illustration to Media, Writing and Production.

  Mr Ahmed, who trained in graphic design and photography, is now Head of Religion and Ethics for the BBC. He told guests the students had achieved ‘no mean feat’ in developing creative ideas for bringing religious programming to Radio 1 and pitching those ideas to Head of Religion Radio, Christine Morgan.

The University of Bolton and the BBC have been working together to open up pathways into employment in the media industry for students and to develop new talent within the region.

The University signed a partnership agreement with the BBC in 2008, ahead of the Corporation’s move to Salford next year.

The partnership between The University of Bolton and the BBC helps to identify new talent, focus on learning and development, build relationships within communities and develop clear pathways into the BBC and the wider industry.

The BBC works with the University of Bolton on projects which now include:

BBC Radio Drama Media Placements for Bolton students

planned writing workshops for students with BBC producers and writers who  come to the University as guest speakers

BBC Writersroom networking events

supporting the BBC’s religion and ethics section with the University helping the BBC reach a broader cross-section of the community.

The BBC and the University of Bolton are also working together to develop student placement opportunities within sound recording and music production.

And together the two institutions are developing an outreach programme for local colleges which aims to highlight the range of media careers to young people who do not traditionally consider the media as a profession, such as those from ethnic minority groups.

University of Bolton students won the BBC Writersroom Future Talent award for new writers 2009 and been placed runner up in the contest this year.

Said Creative Industries Liaison at the University, Jane Stuart: ‘It is great for Bolton to have someone like Aaqil with the BBC, and such a champion of bringing opportunities to the North of England with the BBC’s move from London to Salford.’

The new centre at MediaCityUK in Salford will be home to around 2,400 BBC staff from 2011. Five key London-based departments, including two TV channels and two radio stations, will be making their new homes in Salford: BBC Children’s (including CBBC and CBeebies); BBC Formal Learning; BBC Future Media and Technology; BBC Radio Five Live (including Five Live Sports Extra) and BBC Sport

An exhibition of photographs by MA Photography graduate Caroline Edge and Humphrey Spender opened on the 30th March at Bolton Museum and Art Gallery.

This exhibition compares photographs taken by Humphrey Spender in 1937-8 for the Mass Observation Worktown study of Bolton with modern photographs of seasonal rituals taken by Caroline Edge. Visual parallels between old and new explore communal desires and activities that cross generations.

Caroline Edge with Rotary Club Representatives and Mike Lomas, University Director of Business Development and External Partnerships

The Mass Observation was founded to ‘collect a mass of data based on practical observation, on the everyday life of all types of people’. From 1937-8 the organisation made a study of life in Bolton (Worktown) collecting a large number of observer accounts of attitudes and behaviour. Humphrey Spender’s photographs formed part of this survey and capture the spirit of a northern mill town at work and play.

This exhibition will be displayed for 6 weeks and is supported by the Humphrey Spender John Marriott Scholarship for Social Documentary Photography, 2009.

Ian Beesley, Programme Leader for MA Photography, has recently given a guest lecture at The Narrator’s Gaze Photography Symposium, organised by The National Coal Mining Museum for England and supported by the University of Bolton and Gallery Oldham.

The conference was a special event that celebrated 50 years of documentary photography and was held in association with Nothern Soul, a new exhibition featuring the work of renowned photographer and film maker John Bulmer.

A second photography symposium will be taking place at Gallery Oldham on the 15th May 2010 and will be linked to their forthcoming North South Divide exhibition.

Centre, Ian Beesley.