My Second Home: Jennifer Coleman
Director of Development, Institute of Imagination
My Second Home is a weekly series in which we profile different members of our community to find out more about their work, their industry, and what culturally inspires them. This week it’s the turn of Jennifer Coleman, Director of Development at pioneering children’s charity, the Institute of Imagination.
Work + Life: What is the Institute of Imagination?
Jennifer Coleman: We’re a children’s charity working to create space for children to reimagine the world. We are driven by the knowledge that the world is changing at an ever increasing pace. A recent WEF report said that 65% of children who are starting primary school today will end up doing jobs that have not been invented yet. We have no idea what the world is going to be like for children growing up today, yet we are not providing them the opportunity to develop the skills and resilience to face that uncertain future with confidence.
So schools are not adapting quickly enough?
There are a lot of restrictions on children’s lives. In schools there are restrictions around the curriculum — we still teach in a very subject based approach. It’s difficult for teachers to operate creatively within that framework. So we do a lot of work with teachers to see how we can complement what they do in the classroom. Teachers have described it as a creative airlock — creating space for children to follow their own ideas without any pre-determined outcomes and letting them lead the way.
Equally there’s a lot of pressure at home. Parents are both increasingly working, the days are longer and the time that families get to spend together is much less. Often the time they do spend together is spent doing extra tutoring or lessons, again in a very structured and programmed way. We’re trying to break that down and work with parents to give them the opportunity to play with their kids in a very hands on way. Typically when you go to a cultural space you’re learning about what people before you have done, or learning from adults who are experts in something. We want to flip that on its head because children have amazing ideas and their imaginations are an abundant resource. If you give them time and space to explore and experiment they can come up with incredible ideas.
“Children have amazing ideas and their imaginations are an abundant resource. If you give them time and space to explore and experiment they can come up with incredible ideas.”
What is your target age range?
Our core is 0–14. We work with pre-schools because there is very little on offer for under 5s. Our focus is on children but you also need to engage the parents and siblings — if you haven’t changed the adults’ perception by the time they leave, then you’re not going to change the ongoing experience for the child. A lot of the work we do with schools in supporting change in teaching, looking at how they can keep up this form of creative learning after our visit. With parents it’s helping get them involved — we create activities that no matter what age or ability you can get hands on.
How many people have you worked with so far?
Over the last 4 years we’ve worked with 11,000 people through mobile and pop up activities. What we’re really excited about is that from October we’ll have our own space for the first time. We’ve been gifted an Imagination Lab space down on Albert Embankment. It’s exciting because we’ll be there every week from the new year delivering programmes for schools and families. We’re aiming to do around 200 days of activity next year. That means we’ll be able to work up to 25,000 people in one year, it’s a huge increase in reach and impact for us.
What is the cost for participants?
What’s really interesting about being a new charity is balancing slightly competing priorities. We want to create an organisation that is self sustaining that doesn’t just rely on donations. So we’re creating a business model around products, retail, events, things of that nature. We also want to make sure our offer is accessible for everyone, regardless of background, or ability. For some, charging could be a financial barrier so we’re exploring different models, such as corporate day-sponsorship. Importantly, our school visits will be free. We will also continue to do a lot of outreach work, such as our Imagination Pods for schools and mobile activities within communities.
What are the biggest challenges that you have had to overcome?
Raising funds, because the climate is challenging and funding is harder to come by than it has been. By its very nature we are trying to do something that is disruptive, we don’t fit neatly into a box. We are doing something that is arts and culture but is also science, community, wellbeing, family, school… we work across those divides and operate in a slightly ambiguous space where they overlap. For funders and partners that can be a challenge because that’s not typically how people operate. We don’t fit neatly into a box and that’s the whole point — that’s where the world is going, it won’t be neatly divided sections or disciplines. That won’t exist anymore but that’s how we all generally still operate, which feeds into the siloed approach to things like funding and education. So when you go to apply for funding they still want to know whether you want to apply for art funding or science funding, there aren’t many that bring the two together. So you have to pick one, and then we don’t compare as favourably to an organisation that is just doing that one thing every day.
“One of the reasons why being in Second Home is so important to us is that if we truly want to work in a cutting edge interdisciplinary manner that puts products and technology into the hands of children we can’t do it on our own.”
Does that worry you?
No, that makes it exciting. We like disrupting and being in that ambiguous space. There’s a huge opportunity. One of the reasons why being in Second Home is so important to us is that if we truly want to work in a cutting edge interdisciplinary manner that puts products and technology into the hands of children we can’t do that it our own. As a charity we can’t be the experts in everything. What we can be is the experts in how to engage and inspire children and families to unlock their imagination, but we need partners to deliver the content. We’ve done some fascinating work with neuroscientists at the UCL’s London Brain Project who are getting people to think how their brains are wired and developed from birth onwards. We’ve also been working with companies like Kano Computers and using their kits to teach coding. We took over City Hall in July with the Siobhan Davies dance company to explore movement. In each of these areas we’re identifying who is at the cutting edge of that field and how we can work with them and mix it together to give kids a really interesting opportunity. That for me is the real fun of it, getting to work with all these people who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and then introducing that to children.
What has been the most memorable project?
The work that has the most personal impact for me are the projects with children who have special educational needs. We went into one school for children with a diagnosis of autism and we took along a sound artist. In these classes there are a lot of restrictions put in place so that they can operate day in, day out. I understand that approach but it can also limit the children and doesn’t give them the opportunities they need to discover new things. They were sceptical about having a sound artist coming in, because typically children with autism don’t like noise. One day Tom, the sound artist, wanted to cover the classroom in newspaper to change the acoustics of the classroom. There was one boy in particular who liked everything to be very neat and in order, so for him that idea was a nightmare. We convinced the teacher to try it, and Tom explained to the boy what he wanted to do and said “You can help me put it up, and then you put it back exactly how it was before, does that sound okay?” And because he empowered the child to do it himself, it wasn’t being done to him, it was fine and they covered the classroom in newspaper and they loved it. The teacher was completely amazed, they hadn’t seen these children be so creative or let loose like that. If you give children the opportunity to try new things, they’ll be able to do much more than we think they can.
“The teacher was completely amazed, they hadn’t seen these children be so creative or let loose like that. If you give children the opportunity to try new things, they’ll be able to do much more than we think they can.”
What other tools do you use?
Everything we do is about creating space to re-imagine the world. We provide stimulus, ideas, provocations and tools to help people apply their imagination. We have these things called Imagination Pods, they’re like wardrobes on wheels. Each one has a different theme, so there’s one about changing spaces, one about sound, one about looking and exploring, and then there’s one specifically for under-5s called “What’s in the Box”. The sound one, for example, has a “Lentil Speaker”, so children can put lentils onto the speakers and see how different sound waves change the way that they move. Our practitioners give an introduction to the class about the Pod – each one has a story that incorporates the theme — then we show them how to use what’s inside. What’s different to other interventions is that it’s then left there for two weeks and the class can use it and explore however they see fit. It’s about giving them the confidence to follow their curiosity, perhaps to discover a talent they didn’t know they had and to create an experience that will stick with them. We’ve had teachers who have told us that they have subsequently bought some of the equipment we used or set up their own pods as they were so impressed with the impact.
We obviously want to see what kind of impact we’ve had, so after two weeks practitioners go back and get the class to demonstrate what they’ve been doing and then they do a follow up interview with the teachers to get the stories and find out how to improve the experience. From that core program we’ve developed some continuing professional development for teachers in (CPU) training workshops. It’s actually changing how teachers want to interact with their students.
What is the ultimate goal for iOi over the next few years?
Increasing our reach and engagement. We also want to develop our research program. We are an official institute, so we’re looking at the potential of doing academic research and informing people around the world about what we’re doing, to share that knowledge more widely. Ultimately we are working towards opening our own Institute of Imagination campus, a permanent home that we can operate on from. The goal is to reach 600,000 people a year directly, and then through our online offer reach countless more. We want to be the civic space in London for children and their families. There isn’t one right now. It will also enable us to hold conferences, policy debates, bring a spotlight onto children and their development in the future. We focus on the imagination because that’s the fundamental starting point for everything from the first mark on a cave wall to the first steps on the moon, that all started in someone’s imagination. It’s the fundamental capacity of human beings.
“We focus on imagination because that’s the fundamental starting point for everything — from the first mark on a cave wall to the first steps on the moon, it all started in someone’s imagination.”
What book has inspired your journey with iOi?
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. From a work context, it’s amazing. Imagination was the thing that set us apart from the other species that we ousted. This ability to construct imaginings and share them with others. Whether it’s religion or community or the fact that paper could represent something of value to trade with, it’s that ability to imagine that has made us the successful species we’ve been, and that will continue to be the case.
Who has inspired your imagination?
One of our patrons is Professor Alison Gopnik. She gave a lecture for iOi a couple of years ago at the Wellcome Collection and has also given an amazing TED talk called What Do Babies Think? She’s based at University of Berkeley, in California and has done some very interesting research which focuses on the early years of development of children. It all comes back to how fundamental imagination is to our species and to our success. She talks about how the longer the period of infancy a species has, the more intelligent it becomes. The longer we give our offspring to be imaginative and playful in safe environment, the more intelligent they will be. Alison talks about children being the R&D department of humanity, they get their safe space to fail and try before the have to become the adult marketing department and get food on the table and create shelter. I love that idea. Hearing her speak and her passion for what we’re trying to do was really inspiring.
When you were a kid, what did you imagine you would grow up to be ?
When I was really little I remember being at primary school and having to draw a picture of what I wanted to be when I grew up — I drew a jockey. I did go on to ride horses but I became too tall to become a jockey so I had to drop that dream. After that I wanted to save the world. I was very precocious about it. Then I got a bit older and realised I couldn’t do that on my own and that I might need to work with some other people to make that happen.
Finally, what companies at Second Home inspire you?
Spacehive and Sound Diplomacy.
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