5 Questions With...

Go behind the scenes at Boom this month with our co-founder and Studio Director, Marianne Kennerley

Marianne in her studio at Boom

With a Degree in fashion design, Marianne gained extensive experience in the textiles industry before redundancies led her to study a Masters in multidisciplinary design and Diploma in Sustainable Investment in the Third sector.  Bitten by the social enterprise bug, and after a “what’s next?” conversation with other artists around her in the Project 24 Pod Studios in Bangor, Marianne co-founded Boom Studios in 2014.  

Marianne has continued to develop Boom Studios over the past 8 years and is now employed as the Studio Director, overseeing 26 artist studios, the popular “Creative Days” workshop programme, “Trade” professional development for creatives, and a busy calendar of outreach, community art events and advocacy for the creative industries.

It’s a wonder she has time to answer any questions, but here’s 5.  Actually there were 6 but if you want to know whether she’d rather fight a duck-sized horse or 100 duck-sized horses then we’re going to need to see some blog shares!

Q1 - What does an average working day look like for you?

This is hard to answer because no 2 days are ever the same!  I suppose on a “normal” day there’s a lot of meeting people; giving studio tours, working with studio members, customers coming through the doors, delivering workshops.  Then tasks in the building right down to cleaning the loos, which is my favourite part of the job (!!).

Q2 - What has been the main focus of 2023 so far?

The main focus of quarter 1 has been survival.  Like every business, especially microbusinesses, we’ve really felt the pandemic hangover and general financial/energy price crisis.  We had to review all our costs and look at where our money is going and what the expectation is on our services.  It’s a good process to go through though, it makes sure we have a good understanding of why people come to Boom, what they need and what they can pay for.

Q3 - What’s on May’s to-do list?

Within Boom, developing projects*.  Some of the new ones we’ve started this year need reviewed, make sure they’re doing what we said and enhance them going forward.  There’s also a Board meeting - we have new board members and office bearers coming on board soon.  We’ll be looking at our financials again but more forecasting rather than immediate issues; looking at anticipated income going forward and where the priorities are, what we can do and new avenues to explore.

Alongside the core Boom work I am involved in a lot of advocacy - work that I do to further the creative and cultural sector in Ards & North Down.   I’m on a few Boards: Chamber of Commerce, Seacourt Print Workshop, Codo Drops and I’m also on the City Centre Advisory Group for Bangor.  That one is different as it can be learning about the nitty gritty of city infrastructure, sometimes it’s discussing where to put bins, where parking bays are needed, consulting on things like that.  I also liaise with the Council events team and we take quite an active role in community-facing art provision at their events too.  

We’re also moving to some partnership delivery with the Council around our Trade professional development programme, that’s a slight change as previously we’ve been a service provider, delivering creative business-based sessions but to move to a partnership means that we can be more involved in developing our Trade professional development forum and open that out to a wider audience.  

This month I have a board meeting at Seacourt, looking forward to catching up with our neighbours across the road.  Chamber of Commerce meeting, there’s a break for the City Centre Advisory Group however until after the Council elections.

I’ve also been on the Asylum Seekers and Refugee Working Group for the last 18 months or so, we meet once a month and update/get updates from a variety of organisations whose work touches that service provision.

*This year Boom Studios launched the Open Art initiative, a Thursday morning drop-in aimed at engaging local people and newcomers to Bangor, combating loneliness and fostering understanding and community.  There is also the Arts Council-funded teen wellbeing project, Art for the Heart, and various events and partnerships ongoing. 

Q4 - Boom Studios was one of 61 UK companies that participated in the 4 day working week trial, what did you learn and will you continue?

The 4 day week pilot for us was really about operations: getting that deeper understanding of how we do our work and I suppose the outcome on a personal level is that I need to build a team, more people around me.  But also roles that are good work, that are attractive to people who want to invest their skills and time to make Boom the best it can be.

The intention is to keep it going, in the creative industries you are working with people who have other things going on, maybe their own art practice or other valuable pursuits so it’s important to foster that culture.

Q5 - What is happening at Boom in 5 years time?

Well 5 years from now is 2028 so that means I’ll have a 22, 21, and 14 year old kids so I always frame these questions around that!  Hopefully we will be more energy efficient, that’s on my mind a lot so it’d be great to improve our building, things like double glazing, solar panels, insulation.. Even the basics would be great.  In terms of operations probably much the same but hopefully more - more studios and maybe another workshop on the go offering services to local creatives and the public.  More peace-building and good relations work, again building on what we do now, but more of it