Dan is an award-winning social artist, writer, and speaker living in Margate.

His work is about people and places. He is interested in the creation of social capital, in abandoned or underused spaces, and in DIY approaches to art, culture and social action.

Dan is currently making new work for the first Estuary Festival, working with the Southampton Cultural Development Trust to map creative use of space across the city, collaborating with Dawn Cole with the history of printing in Union Crescent, Margate as their starting point, writing a report into starting a pop up for a national charity, and ghost writing a series of short history books with a woman who’s lived in Margate since 1700.

Dan will talk about his past and current projects for this talk at Fabrica.

A brief biography:

During the 1990s, while Dan was in his 20s, he was the manager of a former workshop space at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing and oversaw its transformation into a studio. He also founded the Worthing Dome & Regeneration Trust, and wrote a business plan and funding applications which saw the historic cinema’s complete refurbishment. Both buildings are still in use today.

Dan has used empty shops since 2000, and he is now a recognised expert on the reuse of empty shops, and on how to create a pop up shop. His work has been referenced by government and Arts Council England. He is the author of the Pop Up People report, and of Pop Up Business For Dummies, published Oct 2012. https://mrdanthompson.wordpress.com