Esther Lisk-Carew, Arts & Humanities Engagement Coordinator (Episode 76) – Esther combines a love of storytelling with a talent for operations
For this episode of the Research Adjacent podcast Sarah has a good chuckle with Esther Lisk-Carew. Esther’s main job is to coordinate the AHEAD programme (Arts and Humanities Engagement and Dialogue) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), although she also does freelance work. Esther’s role at MMU involves building connections between researchers and public audiences, helping organise and promote events where research stories are told and shared.
Weaving a unique career path
Esther has managed to weave a career path which pulls together her personal interests and professional skills, although, like so many of my guests, this was not her original plan. At school Esther wanted to be a French judge!
“I loved to talk and I loved to read and I loved languages, and so me thinking I’m not sciencey, I wanted to be a lawyer. And then I specifically had a really great A level French teacher, and I thought I love France. I love law. I’ll be a French lawyer.”
The realisation that she would be enforcing existing laws rather than changing the world led Esther down another path and she eventually found her feet as in the culture and heritage sector. The instability of this sector means that Esther has done a huge number of roles, but they all helped build the skills and network that she relies on today.
“It comes full circle. Both with me having worked in a film team at a cinema and with me having to originally wanted to be a lawyer. One of the projects I worked on I helped support our crime and justice film festival, which our sociology team put together every year.”
At MMU Esther has been involved in a wide range of projects. Recent favourites include the Liberation play, which commemorated the Pan-African Congress in Manchester, and the Mother Tongue, Other Tongue poetry series, which celebrated linguistic diversity among school children. These examples also showcase another passion – increasing diversity in culture. This is a topic she explored in the podcast Well Spoken Tokens.
“I used to do a thing called ‘the count’ where I’d go into a meeting and literally just physically count how many other people in the room didn’t just have one homogenised look. I always like seeing more people who look like me and more variety, just generally in the world.”
Engagement and method overlap in the arts and humanities
Roles like Esther’s are often not as common as science-based public engagement roles. This leads to a stereotype that public engagement is only important for the STEM subjects. The difference is that engagement is often an integral part of the process of research in the arts and humanities.
“Collaborative methodology, coworking, co-producing, working with different audiences to develop practice? I think a lot of those techniques and methodologies that people are encouraged to try and start using in other academic areas do tend to already be used.”
And the kinds of outputs common in the arts and humanities are often more accessible than standard publications.
“Quite a lot of people think about research outputs in terms of papers and conferences. But there is nothing greater than having one of the outputs of your research be a play that gets to engage hundreds of people a night.”
And Esther’s love of film and popular culture means that she can see how impactful iconic role models can be. So much so that she would use her Research Adjacent magic wand to transform the mentor Rupert Giles in the upcoming reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer into an academic researcher, rather than a librarian. Maybe someone is listening who could make that happen!
Helping others to build creative careers
An important part of Esther’s career has been mentoring other trying to carve out a career in the arts and cultural sector. She helps people understand how to build their skills and experience, while also paying the bills, even if that means doing less desirable roles.
“Whilst precarity is to be expected, you can ask for more in certain spaces and if you know you’re going into a precarious situation, that’s great. That’s the level of energy that you can give to it that is appropriate to the level of precarity. If they want you for that firm amount of time or for longer, then they should be building that in to support you.”
This pragmatic approach has helped Esther to build a portfolio career that she loves and means she can help others see how to combine their own creative practice with more stable income streams.
Find out more
- Find out about everything Esther is working on via her Linktree
- Find AHEAD at MMU on the web, Linktree, LinkedIn and Instagram
Theme music by Lemon Music Studios from Pixabay
