“The sentiment and the pizazz of this place is like everything I’ve ever wanted,” says Sharna Jackson, the new artistic director of Site Gallery in Sheffield.
She began her role in July in the run up to the venue’s reopening. The £1.7m extension was unveiled in September in the gallery’s 40th year, and triples the size of Site’s spaces, as well as providing a dedicated project space, cafe and shop. Jackson’s appointment is central to the future of the organisation, where one of her aims is to create a compelling exhibition programme.
“The main space is fantastic,” she says. “We can put on blockbuster-esque ambitious work in there, and do rapid things in our project space.”
The opening show, which is on until 27 January, is called Liquid Crystal Display, and has some of the stardust quality that Jackson talks about. The exhibition interrogates the theme of LCD screen technology and the extraordinary crystals that lie at the heart of it. Loans include the Victorian artist and geologist John Ruskin’s collection of minerals, and an early work by the contemporary artist Eva Rothschild.
“Before, we only had the project space, so if we were installing something the whole gallery was pretty much closed.”
Jackson knew Site Gallery well before she joined through her work for the Children’s Media Conference, an event that brings together those involved in developing, producing and distributing content to kids on platforms including film, television, radio, interactive media, games and lots more.
In 2016, Jackson put together the inaugural children’s interactive exhibition for the conference, which took place at Site Gallery.
“I try to bring artists, museums and cultural institutions together to be part of the Children’s Media Conference,” Jackson says. “In the last three years I’ve curated an annual show called Playground for them in different galleries across Sheffield.”
After its first year, the exhibition has been held at to two other Sheffield venues – Cantor Gallery in 2017 and Millennium Gallery in 2018. The show returns to Site Gallery this year, and will be titled Game/Changers.
“We do it for kids up to 12 years old, but it’s for everybody,” says Jackson, whose enthusiasm for the show shines through. “Playground is made up of toys that merge the digital and physical world. There’s AR, there’s VR and lots of tech. I do something for pre-schoolers that’s really easy where they can use Play Doh and conductive paint. But I try and programme the show so everyone can find something for them.”
Jackson says that this year she wants to work with the youngsters that are attached to Site Gallery’s young people’s programme and get them really involved in the curation and creation of Playground.
Fun for all
Being the driven person she is, Jackson joined the Children’s Media Conference when she already had a demanding job at Tate, from 2007 to 2013.
“No one wants to go to a ‘forward-slash learning’ part of a website because it’s going to be boring. It’s an immediate downer,” says Jackson. “This was supposed to be cool and jazzy and get kids to love art.”
An array of artist-inspired games and activities for children under the guise of Tate Kids is part of Jackson’s legacy. But what got her so enthused to work with children in the art and museum sector?
“I grew up in Luton and at the time it wasn’t the most culturally exciting place. It was very industry heavy,” she says.
The town was famous for making cars, and before that boater hats, but Jackson says that there wasn’t much in terms of really engaging museum-based activities.
“As a young person I used to always go to the art centre and just try and be involved,” Jackson says. “I think that’s where the working with children thing happened. It’s such a great age to start developing taste.”
Jackson speaks about how engaged her own eight-year-old son is with the arts. “I pick him up from school and he sits at my desk and asks me stuff like, ‘have you safety checked the inflatable egg that we’re having at the performance on Friday because I have suffocation concerns’,” she laughs, and says back to him: “I think it’ll be fine, we’re going to do a risk assessment.”
But Jackson is very aware that not all children and their families are as engaged in the arts as her son is.
“Even opening a gallery door, crossing the threshold into an art space, can feel like quite a frosty experience, and that’s where we can work to really support schools,” Jackson says. “Giving people the confidence to come into our gallery is a really important start.
I don’t want us to be a stuffy institution that only a certain segment of people feel comfortable coming to. If that’s the case then I’ve failed at my job.”
On an adventure
It sounds like Jackson’s got that under control and, anyway, Site already has its Society of Explorers programme for 14- to 18-year-olds, which is run with help from Eelyn Lee, the engagement curator, and Peter Martin, the gallery’s young people’s programmes producer.
“Together we’re going to identify and work out which audiences we feel that we can go in and have the most impact with, and prioritise those.”
Jackson says she’s also going to create a new board to ensure that every part of Sheffield society feels included in Site Gallery’s programme. “I’m calling it a community board in my head, but I’ll brand it up and make it sexy. Basically it’ll be members of the community from all walks of life who will help us with our mission.”
So, Jackson has a big job and she’s also the curator for a children’s conference on the side. Surely that must be it?
“I’m a children’s novelist as well,” she says. “I’ve written kids art books but this will be my first novel. It’s about two young sisters who live on a council estate and they find a dead body in the trash chute and they have to solve the murder really quickly.”
Jackson’s book High-Rise Mystery is published in April this year by Knights Of, a new publishing company that focuses on diverse storytelling among its authors and the stories they tell. This isn’t her first experience of publishing though.
“I worked at Wonderbly from 2011 to 2018, a kids book publisher, which was wild,” Jackson says. “They’re the world’s first personalised publisher. They really work from your name and put your personality into the books. They’ve done massively well and are now funded by Google. But it was a lot of hard work and burning the midnight oil.”
Jackson is clearly a highly creative person and has the energy to match. “I love having lots of different jobs because it helps with what I’m trying to do at Site.”
She doesn’t like start-up working culture, for instance. “But there are some links I can make between start-ups, commerce, and the arts, and bring to my work here.”
While she has her fingers in many pies, the core focus for Jackson is obviously looking at what impact she can make across the new space at Site Gallery.
Forever playful, Jackson says that even the working relationship with the director of Site, Judith Harry, is fun.
“It’s such a great partnership. She’s been so generous and open with me. She’s been here since 2011, so it’s a big change having me here instead of Laura Sillars.”
There’s quite a career conveyor belt to follow: Sillars has gone on to become the director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, replacing Alistair Hudson, who is now the director of the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery in Manchester.
The opening show at Site follows that same route, travelling to Middlesbrough after its stint in Sheffield. “I’ll be sad to see it go, but chuffed to see how it evolves at a different venue too,” she says.
Jackson will get to shape Site Gallery’s programme going forward though, something she is excited about. “It’s honestly so good. I just love it. Everyday I’m like, ‘oh my God, this is my dream job’.”
Sharna Jackson is the artistic director of Site Gallery in Sheffield.
She studied English and media studies at Sussex University. She then worked as an e-learning designer for Epic Learning, then became a project editor at EdComs, a marketing agency specialising in education. She became curator of Tate Kids in 2007, and moved on to be the director, creative and interactive, at Hopster, an app for kids.
She is on the Bafta Children’s Committee, and a trustee for Sheffield Doc/Fest, New Writing North, and circus theatre organisation Upswing.
Site Gallery opened 40 years ago in Sheffield with a mission to display international contemporary art.
Run by 12 staff and around 40 volunteers, Site Gallery is funded by Arts Council England and Sheffield City Council, among others.
The £1.7m extension, designed by DRDH Architects, triples the gallery’s exhibition space, and means it can have a more vibrant temporary exhibition programme.
She began her role in July in the run up to the venue’s reopening. The £1.7m extension was unveiled in September in the gallery’s 40th year, and triples the size of Site’s spaces, as well as providing a dedicated project space, cafe and shop. Jackson’s appointment is central to the future of the organisation, where one of her aims is to create a compelling exhibition programme.
“The main space is fantastic,” she says. “We can put on blockbuster-esque ambitious work in there, and do rapid things in our project space.”
The opening show, which is on until 27 January, is called Liquid Crystal Display, and has some of the stardust quality that Jackson talks about. The exhibition interrogates the theme of LCD screen technology and the extraordinary crystals that lie at the heart of it. Loans include the Victorian artist and geologist John Ruskin’s collection of minerals, and an early work by the contemporary artist Eva Rothschild.
“Before, we only had the project space, so if we were installing something the whole gallery was pretty much closed.”
Jackson knew Site Gallery well before she joined through her work for the Children’s Media Conference, an event that brings together those involved in developing, producing and distributing content to kids on platforms including film, television, radio, interactive media, games and lots more.
In 2016, Jackson put together the inaugural children’s interactive exhibition for the conference, which took place at Site Gallery.
“I try to bring artists, museums and cultural institutions together to be part of the Children’s Media Conference,” Jackson says. “In the last three years I’ve curated an annual show called Playground for them in different galleries across Sheffield.”
After its first year, the exhibition has been held at to two other Sheffield venues – Cantor Gallery in 2017 and Millennium Gallery in 2018. The show returns to Site Gallery this year, and will be titled Game/Changers.
“We do it for kids up to 12 years old, but it’s for everybody,” says Jackson, whose enthusiasm for the show shines through. “Playground is made up of toys that merge the digital and physical world. There’s AR, there’s VR and lots of tech. I do something for pre-schoolers that’s really easy where they can use Play Doh and conductive paint. But I try and programme the show so everyone can find something for them.”
Jackson says that this year she wants to work with the youngsters that are attached to Site Gallery’s young people’s programme and get them really involved in the curation and creation of Playground.
Fun for all
Being the driven person she is, Jackson joined the Children’s Media Conference when she already had a demanding job at Tate, from 2007 to 2013.
“My position was a brand new role, the curator of Tate Kids,” she says. “The job was to start a platform for children. Before I joined Tate, there was a ragtag collection of games online for kids that were commissioned by people all over the place, all thrown into the tate.org.uk/learning URL.”
An array of artist-inspired games and activities for children under the guise of Tate Kids is part of Jackson’s legacy. But what got her so enthused to work with children in the art and museum sector?
“I grew up in Luton and at the time it wasn’t the most culturally exciting place. It was very industry heavy,” she says.
The town was famous for making cars, and before that boater hats, but Jackson says that there wasn’t much in terms of really engaging museum-based activities.
“As a young person I used to always go to the art centre and just try and be involved,” Jackson says. “I think that’s where the working with children thing happened. It’s such a great age to start developing taste.”
Jackson speaks about how engaged her own eight-year-old son is with the arts. “I pick him up from school and he sits at my desk and asks me stuff like, ‘have you safety checked the inflatable egg that we’re having at the performance on Friday because I have suffocation concerns’,” she laughs, and says back to him: “I think it’ll be fine, we’re going to do a risk assessment.”
But Jackson is very aware that not all children and their families are as engaged in the arts as her son is.
“Even opening a gallery door, crossing the threshold into an art space, can feel like quite a frosty experience, and that’s where we can work to really support schools,” Jackson says. “Giving people the confidence to come into our gallery is a really important start.
I don’t want us to be a stuffy institution that only a certain segment of people feel comfortable coming to. If that’s the case then I’ve failed at my job.”
On an adventure
It sounds like Jackson’s got that under control and, anyway, Site already has its Society of Explorers programme for 14- to 18-year-olds, which is run with help from Eelyn Lee, the engagement curator, and Peter Martin, the gallery’s young people’s programmes producer.
“Together we’re going to identify and work out which audiences we feel that we can go in and have the most impact with, and prioritise those.”
Jackson says she’s also going to create a new board to ensure that every part of Sheffield society feels included in Site Gallery’s programme. “I’m calling it a community board in my head, but I’ll brand it up and make it sexy. Basically it’ll be members of the community from all walks of life who will help us with our mission.”
So, Jackson has a big job and she’s also the curator for a children’s conference on the side. Surely that must be it?
“I’m a children’s novelist as well,” she says. “I’ve written kids art books but this will be my first novel. It’s about two young sisters who live on a council estate and they find a dead body in the trash chute and they have to solve the murder really quickly.”
Jackson’s book High-Rise Mystery is published in April this year by Knights Of, a new publishing company that focuses on diverse storytelling among its authors and the stories they tell. This isn’t her first experience of publishing though.
“I worked at Wonderbly from 2011 to 2018, a kids book publisher, which was wild,” Jackson says. “They’re the world’s first personalised publisher. They really work from your name and put your personality into the books. They’ve done massively well and are now funded by Google. But it was a lot of hard work and burning the midnight oil.”
Jackson is clearly a highly creative person and has the energy to match. “I love having lots of different jobs because it helps with what I’m trying to do at Site.”
She doesn’t like start-up working culture, for instance. “But there are some links I can make between start-ups, commerce, and the arts, and bring to my work here.”
While she has her fingers in many pies, the core focus for Jackson is obviously looking at what impact she can make across the new space at Site Gallery.
“I’m trying to use every nook and cranny of it,” she says. “There’s this little window at the front of the gallery that I’m going to make into Sheffield’s smallest gallery. That window is mine.”
“It’s such a great partnership. She’s been so generous and open with me. She’s been here since 2011, so it’s a big change having me here instead of Laura Sillars.”
There’s quite a career conveyor belt to follow: Sillars has gone on to become the director of the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, replacing Alistair Hudson, who is now the director of the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery in Manchester.
The opening show at Site follows that same route, travelling to Middlesbrough after its stint in Sheffield. “I’ll be sad to see it go, but chuffed to see how it evolves at a different venue too,” she says.
Jackson will get to shape Site Gallery’s programme going forward though, something she is excited about. “It’s honestly so good. I just love it. Everyday I’m like, ‘oh my God, this is my dream job’.”
Sharna Jackson at a glance
Sharna Jackson is the artistic director of Site Gallery in Sheffield.
She studied English and media studies at Sussex University. She then worked as an e-learning designer for Epic Learning, then became a project editor at EdComs, a marketing agency specialising in education. She became curator of Tate Kids in 2007, and moved on to be the director, creative and interactive, at Hopster, an app for kids.
She is on the Bafta Children’s Committee, and a trustee for Sheffield Doc/Fest, New Writing North, and circus theatre organisation Upswing.
Site Gallery at a glance
Site Gallery opened 40 years ago in Sheffield with a mission to display international contemporary art.
The gallery specialises in moving image, new media and performance and does not hold a collection.
The £1.7m extension, designed by DRDH Architects, triples the gallery’s exhibition space, and means it can have a more vibrant temporary exhibition programme.
Site Gallery is the only English venue this year to receive a grant from the Freelands Foundation to support an artist residency programme.
