Dj McDowall

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT DJ MCDOWALL

SPECIALISMS- Community Building - Youth & Community Engagement - Immersive (Learning) Experiences - Engaging UnderRepresented Voices - Participatory Approaches - Heritage Engagement - Immersive Storytelling - Collaborative practice (co-creation)- Inspiration & Innovation Over 3 decades experience as a professional Youth/Community Development practitioner, Cultural Producer, Socially Engaged Creative Practitioner, Creative Director & Specialist in Interactive + Immersive Participatory Approaches. As Provocateur, Mischief Maker + Social Justice Warrior I use creative and innovative methods to promote inclusion, co-creating projects which challenge perceptions, instigate positive change, understanding and community cohesion. Known for my integrity and dynamic approach, my work has been nominated for (and won) local, national + international awards; has been repeatedly highlighted as an \'Example of Good Practice\'(HMIe inspections), and heralded as ‘Groundbreaking’ + ‘Revolutionary’. I’ve been instrumental in establishing long running community initiatives, produced countless groups, events, courses, opportunities, campaigns and issue based projects, keeping communities at the heart of developments. My particular passion is Creative Activism: inspiring, motivating + working alongside young people/communities building their capacity to effectively engage in local, national + international issues. This led me to deliver workshops at World Youth Conferences in Singapore + Colombia. I have extensive experience in multi-disciplinary collaborative practice, co-creating & delivering projects/events, strategic development, mentoring and training in a range of settings. I founded Sleeping Giants CIC, providing a wide range of training, consultancy, project management, strategic development, support and inspiration for those working with communities. I went on to activate The Imaginarium, co-creating with communities, organisations, relevant collaborators to bring about transformative change by imagining radical new possibilities, and assisting them to practically manifest these as new realities. I also established ‘The Gallovidian Way’ - The Imaginarium’s sister organisation (formerly Hidden Histories of Dumfries & Galloway) focused on community heritage engagement, and the revealing of lesser known / hidden local histories. Fusing the worlds of immersive storytelling, experiential learning and community heritage engagement. Using culture to create change, and finding creative methods to make invisible histories visible really makes my tail wag!