Congratulations to the joint winners of the Lorraine Lim Prize 2022/23

Judges congratulate the winners of the 2022/23 Lorraine Lim Prize.  Continuing the legacy of our colleague, a respected cultural policy researcher with truly global aspirations, promoting intercultural exchange and creative justice, our winners tackle their chosen areas with a similar spirit. Politically engaged, culturally relevant and germane, each work breaks new ground for cultural policy and studies. 

Joint First Prize

Eibhlin Jones with What are the implications on the roles, responsibilities and systems of arts organisations when they become community youth work service providers?

Beth Gillings Pattison with Unpicking The Practitioner’s Perspective: Value-Creation of Crafts Expertise And Repair As An Act Of Care Within The UK Crafts Industry

The judges said:

Eibhlin Jones

This dissertation offer a judicious and balanced understanding of arts organisations involved in delivering community youth services, primarily based in London.  It critically and carefully considers the implications of the increasing youth work carried out by the arts sector for artistic labour and delivers a novel and thoughtful intervention into the wider reaching implications such work could have on the infrastructure of arts organisations and the arts sector itself.

Important questions for the future of arts organisations are raised at a time of severe cuts in arts and youth provision. It is rare for people working in the sector to have the time and opportunity to do the extensive, reflective work it requires. Jones’ research thus provides a rigorous, nuanced investigation which can offer valuable insights for those busy doing the work. The thesis is very political, in that it provokes deeper questions about the politics behind the civic duties of publicly funded arts organisations, but also how the reality of limited funds push community arts to think about their practice and adopt strategies, such as participatory art, socially engaged practice, education programmes or outreach and inclusion projects. The thesis offers a valuable contribution to the field, informing debates about arts organisations providing youth services, with direct implications for not only cultural but also social policy.

Beth Gillings Pattison

This dissertation was judged as an intellectually thoughtful and critically rigorous piece of research on craft expertise, repair and value-creation. It demonstrates exceptionally well how theoretical concepts and practical findings can be woven together into a relational pattern to address the craft threshold through participants voices including craft practitioners. The dissertation deals with cultural value and value-creation of the craft industry related to garment repair, as it assiduously explores the care ethics behind repairing clothing items, to address wider questions related to craft and labour, the consumer and how they value the mend.

What impressed the judges most about this unique project was its reflexive and nuanced writing, as well as close engagement with theory and analysis. The thesis provides rich data and careful analysis, which Pattison uses to consider how expertise and craft is appreciated, and how this appreciation translates into the valuing of clothing items as part of a value chain of creation, skill and craft. The thesis is articulate and well researched with a breadth of reference points and understanding of the field, the history of the craft industry, making and repair in the UK. The work is pertinent to the textile industry and circular economies, connecting care, labour and the crafts industry. It offers data for cultural policy which could help broaden understanding of cultural value and how it is created, as well as provide a valuable contribution to the craft and textile sector.

Special mention

Wafa Jadallah with Through Thick and Thin: A Study on Cultural Hegemony in Palestine and Israel – A Comparative Analysis

The judges said:

This comparative study of the cultural policies within Israel/Palestine could not be timelier, given that the paper was written before the escalation of the recent conflict in Gaza. Drawing heavily on the work of Antonio Gramsci and his concept of hegemony, the thesis assesses the work of NGOs working in the region to preserve and conserve cultural heritage and historical sites. The thesis ties dynamic hegemonies of Palestine’s and Israel’s wider political struggles together, as it discusses practical cultural policy actions in a passionate and a pertinent manner.

Everyone agreed that this is a significant piece of work which gives an overview of the backdrop to the cultural landscape in relation to State power through the cultural policy contexts of Israel and Palestine. The fact that it was written prior to the events of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza made this a very moving read. The judges urge Wafa to continue researching this area, to find a way of updating the work given the current crisis.