Shona
Thomson

An award-winning organiser currently studying community development, with extensive experience of using cinema and heritage to help people share their stories and reclaim local spaces.

Since formally starting in 2015, around 10,000 people from Shetland to Hanoi have participated in A Kind of Seeing projects.

In over twenty years of presenting and organising events in community spaces of all shapes and sizes, the importance of place and belonging is at the heart of the stories I have helped people to shape and share for themselves. Through this work, I believe in bringing folk together to reduce social isolation and play an active part in strengthening communities.

Now, building on this work using the past to talk about the future, I am training to be a Community Learning and Development worker.

I’ve worked in a variety of roles from being a director-level personal assistant in the private and public sectors, to a networks and partnerships coordinator in community cinema development, to a mentor and postgraduate university lecturer. This has led me to work with some brilliant people and groups who support, value and advocate for their communities.

This has inspired me to grow my skills and knowledge by studying community development. To listen and to fight for what I believe in: not looking away from injustices and challenging the barriers I have seen people facing in communities being marginalised time after time after time.

It’s time for my heid to follow where my heart has been going with A Kind of Seeing projects…

See more about my Projects here.
Find out which Partners I’ve worked with.
Feel free to Contact Me to talk more.