Jamie Dormer-Durling

Jamie is a photographer, teacher and producer. As an educator, he favours a non-hierarchical, collaborative form of learning. His approach encourages curiosity and exploration, aiming for a dialogue that benefits both facilitator and student. By rejecting the traditional ‘banking’ system of knowledge transference, and instead aspiring to activate the production of new knowledge in social contexts, his teaching practice questions both the usefulness of - and uses for - that knowledge. In this way, he aims to use education as a socially transformative tool.
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His research interests as an artist reflect this, in unpicking the way that we derive knowledge from our cultural institutions. Working primarily between museum spaces and field studies, he looks to create dialogues between objects, artefacts and the landscape, offering alternative narratives that challenge our established historical accounts.
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Jamie taught photography at UCW for 12 years before moving into academic management overseeing the art and design programme at UCW for 2 years. In 2021 he published the monograph ’Dragons & Snakestones’.

Gwyneth Herbert

Gwyneth Herbert is a performer, composer / lyricist and musical activist with connection and community at the heart of her practice. She has had the joy of collaborating with jazz musicians, artists, academics, communities, theatre companies, orchestras, scratch choirs and thousands of young people to produce a canon of interdisciplinary work that seeks to find dialogue with the world.
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Her creative explorations are rooted in a desire to meet hidden stories, to reach beyond the binary… to honour both the shadows and the light and find the hope within.

Recent projects include "Our Street" - a People's Opera created in collaboration with Music and Theatre for All and the people of Lewisham.
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A relatively new local resident, she is currently excited to be making work in collaboration witht the community on her doorstep. Working with sound artist Jason Singh, nature interpreter Chris Howard and groups in Weston Super Mare to create "View In, View Out", a co-authored commission as part of National Landscapes Association's "Nature Calling" that celebrates the rich local landscape and the diversity of the people that look out across it.

Liz Kelly

As managing director of Bridging The Gap Together! Liz has a vast amount of experience working with neurodivergent people and individuals with complex mental health needs.  

Her wide ranging experience as a leader in our community is invaluable to the aims of Common Waves.