Bubbly, creative, passionate, friendly - just a few of the words that describe Tanica, who I met a few weeks ago for my latest ‘meet the creatives’ blog.
In the early stages of her career, but already very clear that the vision and mission of the company she works for is what drives her most, I admired this ‘compass’ she has for guiding her career path.
Beginning work at the Contact Theatre in a sales role, during the peak of Covid, Tanica stayed 3 years progressing into a digital content and then digital marketing role. It’s clear her time at the theatre was an influential one and she was full of praise for what she described as an “inspirational organisation”. She explained how young people have a voice in Contact Theatre, are encouraged to influence the processes and make up half the board of trustees. I could see how important an organisation’s ethos is to Tanica and this example of an organisation actively ‘living’ its values made a lasting impression on her.
It’s now nearly 3 years since she made the move to Walk the Plank starting as a Marketing and Communications Officer and progressing to Senior Marketing and Communications Officer.
Sounding like a brilliant place to work - a bit like a home for imagination, Walk the Plank produces spectacular outdoor community art events, often in partnership with others like Rochdale Council and Manchester City Council. They’re the charity behind such well known events as Manchester Day Parade and the ‘giant baby’ in Rochdale that drew international attention. Even their offices are designed to have the feel of a boat as a nod to their nautical past. As she spoke about working at Walk the Plank I could see, as with her previous role, that she is passionate about the work she’s doing and the organisation’s mission. She spoke about the importance of championing work she believes in and having a positive impact on both the local community and environment. It was encouraging to hear how much Walk the Plank collaborates with communities to ensure their productions are representative and can later be integrated into the community where it’s feasible to do so (I’m not too sure the giant baby was able to stay as a permanent fixture in Rochdale).
With a degree in fine art, I was initially, wrongly, assuming Tanica would have taken on a role in something directly related to her course. I’ve always thought of fine art as being quite niche and chatting about this challenged my assumptions about what a fine art degree actually covers - marketing and communications were a big part of her course, with students encouraged to set up websites and social media as part of their learning. This made a role in marketing and communications a very natural step. I think it’s often easy to forget just how interlinked different areas of the arts actually are in reality and it makes sense that they are. Whilst creativity is very important to her, a more important driver is mission and purpose. Tanica explained that, for her, creativity can be found in many different ways and as long as she believes the ethos of where she’s working her opportunities for creativity can then always be found.
A really interesting and engaging person to chat with we covered a lot of different topics including visiting Japan, life in Chorlton, a shared inability to properly gauge size and heights and making use of the word ‘fettling’. Whilst very happy with where she is now I don’t doubt that when the time comes to move to the next organisation it will be somewhere that makes a difference.