My guest today is Rod Hebden, and you’re in for a real journey of discovery! In our conversation we cover everything from science, art, creativity and surprisingly, politics.

Rod runs his own business Consulting New Elements and as part of that he runs the Festival Tomorrow and has also set up the Swindon Culture Collective.

The Swindon Culture Collective is a two year project set up to support arts and the cultural sector in Swindon. It’s not about setting up something completely new, but more about pulling together the organisations and people who are already in Swindon. The collective will be just that – it’s about helping the different people and groups to collaborate, communicate and coordinate what they’re doing in a far better way.

We talk about how Swindon sometimes has a perception as being somewhere ‘ordinary’ whereas in fact it’s a place where we have a lot of things going on but often people, including Swindonians don’t know about them. You may be surprised when you hear about all of the nationally significant things that are based in Swindon.

Rod has a passion for bringing together science and art. He did a science degree, an engineering PhD, a master’s degree in science communication and then worked in museums where he was doing education in science. But as he says, he was working in a museum – the arts and cultural sector and this is where his interest in the interaction between science and arts grew. As you’ll hear, he is adamant that both arts and science are creative - unlike what you are often told in school.

He believes that children need to be exposed to arts and sciences to become interested in them and at present without access to higher education, Swindon young people are not always exposed to those opportunities, which is why he is working with the Festival Tomorrow and the Swindon Culture collective.

To contact Rod:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roderickhebden/

LinkedIn Swindon Culture Collective: https://www.linkedin.com/company/swindon-culture-collective/posts/?feedView=all

Website: https://www.festivaloftomorrow.com/

If you would like to contact me, you can visit www.Scottmedia.uk or join my free Facebook group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/prtribe