Publications

The Civic Role of Arts Organisations Learning Report: From Inquiry to Movement, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2023

Roots, Routes and Rhizomes: Cultural Mobility and Local Communities in Volume 1:  Mobility in Culture: Conceptual Frameworks and Approaches (I-Portunus House, 2023)

Celebrating Age Evaluation Reports Arts Council England, 2022, co-written with Imogen Blood, and Lorna Easterbrook

Tees Valley Principles of Practice for Creative Communities (Arc, 2022)

10 Years of Learning from Creative People and Places, Arts Council England, 2022

Tactics for the Tightrope: Creative Resilience for Creative Communities Future Arts Centres, 2021

Multiplying Leadership in Creative Communities, Creative People and Places 2020

‘Quite an adventure’: some lessons from digital arts projects with older people co-written with Imogen Blood, and Lorna Easterbrook for Baring Foundation/Social Tech Trust 2019

‘Changing the cultural landscape isn’t too might a task’ Refelection on 2018 conference of Creative People and Places

Making A Shift: Disabled people and the Arts and Cultural Sector Workforce in England: Understanding trends, barriers and opportunities co-written with EW Group, for Arts Council England

Inside, Outside, Beyond: Artistic Leadership for Contradictory Times 2017: a provocation paper commissioned by Bluecoat, Liverpool.

Faster but Slower/Slower but Faster: Creative People and Places Learning 2016 Faster but Slower, Slower but Faster draws on research from the national and local evaluations; blogs; resources; and insights from the national peer learning programme to tell the story of CPP’s learning so far. It explores what we have learned about the process of working in this way, the insightswe’ve gained and the change that is taking place

People Place Power, Creative People & Places 2016 Conference Report

Making Adaptive Resilience Real 2010. Foundational report on adaptive resilience in the arts

The Role of Diversity in Building Adaptive Resilience – co-written with Tony Nwachukwu 2011 – focuses on the importance of diversity in building resilience, with 8 case studies.

Every child: equality and diversity in arts and culture with, by and for children and young people Co-written as part of team for EW Group, commissioned by Arts Council England to consider their Goal 5 work and the protected characteristics. 

‘What It Does To You’: Excellence in CPP: commissioned by Creative People & Places, co-written with Consillium Research, 2016  

The Art of Living Dangerously co-written with Shelegah Wright, Natalie Querol and Sarah Colston, for MMM/Exchange/nef 2014

Creative Case North 2012-2015 A Review: Executive Summary 2015

20 Case Studies for AMA/CultureHive exploring Business Models, 2016
Introductory page with all 22 resources
Business Model Canvas: Six questions
Introduction to the Business Model Canvas Individual Studies:
Allenheads Contemporary Arts
a-n
Arts at the Old Fire Station, Oxford
Beamish Museum
Black Country Living Museum
Bloodaxe Books
Castlefield Gallery
Derby Museums
Hackney Empire
Ironbridge Gorge Museum
Live Theatre
MAC Birmingham
Ministry of Stories
Red Earth Theatre
Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
South Bank Centre
Watershed
Western Australia Museum

Six Degrees of Connection: Towards the Absolute Alrightness of the Kids a publication arising from Tyneside Cinema’s The Kids Are Alright conference on young people and specialised cinema. It includes a poem written and performed at the conference and recommendations based on the Young Tyneside programme. 2014

21 Ways of Looking At The Sponsors Club, a booklet combining data, stories and poetry to mark the 21st birthday of The Sponsors Club,  2012 


‘Carefully encouraged accidents’ an interview/essay for red nile projects’ Factory Nights 2009/2010

Where Do I Go From Here: essay on Geoff Broadway installation, 2001


Selected Articles and commissioned writing
Five things people forget about resilience: in Engage 36, International Journal of Visual Art and Gallery Education
The F Word: essay on failure Commissioned by Native, the magazine from the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, a NESTA/ACE partnership.
Rollercoasters, cycles and other models of adaptive resilience – for Arts Queensland, AustraliaThe business case for diversity, Arts Professional, December 2011Angels on a pinhead Arts Professional, May 2010

Much of Mark’s writing over the last few years has been on the Thinking Practice and Arts Counselling blogs.


Selected academic articles
The value of theatre and dance for Tyneside’s audiences: joint authored by Joshua Edelman, Maja Šorli and Mark Robinson (Supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Cultural Value Project, delivered by The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London Thinking Practice and The Empty Space)
‘‘True North’: reinvention of the provinces in the poems of Simon Armitage and the Northern School’ inA World of Local Voices (Universitat des Saarlandes, 2003)
‘Writing Well: health and the power to make images’ – Journal of Medical Ethics:Medical Humanities (2000)
’’More than Literacy, More than Reading: Arts Education Agencies, Writers and the National Year of Reading, Education 3-13, (2000)
‘Building a Democratic Literary Culture on Teesside’ in Poetry Now: Contemporary British & Irish Poetry in the Making (Studies in English Vol 13) ed. Holger Klein (Stauffenburg-Verlag, 1999)
‘’Abandoning purity: British Alternative Poetry, Bad Subjects, #45, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. 1999

Books

Tactics for the Tightrope: Creative Resilience for Creative Communities (Future Arts Centres, 2021)
How I Learned to Sing (Smokestack Books, 2013) New & Selected PoemsFour Times North: translations into Bulgarian, alongside Andy Croft, Linda France and W.N. Herbert. Translations by Kristin Dimitrova, Georgi Gospodinov, Nadezhda Radulova and VBV. (NB: for Bulgarian/Cyrillic readers!) A Balkan Exchange: 8 British and Bulgarian Poets, (co-translator of Kristin Dimitrova, Georgi Gospodinov, Nadya Radulova and VBV, with Andy Croft, W.N. Herbert and Linda France)  (Arc 2006) – new work and translation of leading Bulgarian poets
Running Good Writing Groups (with Rebecca ORourke) (National Association of Writers Groups, 2003) – a handbook originally published by University of Leeds in 1996 and then updated in 2003.
Words out Loud: 10 essays on the poetry reading (Editor, Stride 2002) – one of the first studies of its types of the social and cultural practice of poetry readings
Half A Mind (Flambard, 1998) – poems
Twelfth Song, Hulke Aktunc (co-translator, Poetry Ireland, 1998)
Water Music Lale Muldur (co-translator, Poetry Ireland, 1998)
Gaps Between Hills (with Dermot Blackburn & Andy Croft, poems and photographs) (Scratch, 1996) – shortlisted for a Northern Electric Arts Award
The Horse Burning Park (Stride, 1994) – poems
A Hole Like That: 13 Cleveland Poets (editor) (Scratch, 1994)
Magazine & Literary Journals: A Guide (Cleveland Arts, 1994).