New project development
Morley looks to develop new projects, both College wide and specific to each Teaching Centre, in partnership with Trusts & Foundations and corporations.
Morley Heart Gardens project
A new Greenshoots grant has been awarded to the North Kensington Centre by the Kensington & Chelsea Foundation for a summer 2021 project to green the hoardings which will protect the site during refurbishment works to the Centre.
Following the Morley Heart Gardens project in the summer of 2020, which also attracted a small grant from the Greenshoots fund, we will be again working with Tayshan Hayden-Smith to deliver the project.
You can find out about Morley’s most recent project in partnership between the North Kensington Centre and Tayshan Hayden-Smith of Grow2Know.
This outdoor gardening project has provided support for young learners as part of our Summer Enrichment Programme and has been doing great work to develop the green spaces outside the North Kensington centre. We are grateful to the Kensington & Chelsea Foundation’s Greenshoots fund for generously supporting the project.
Artist in residence project
Reflecting the rich cultural heritage of Morley, we plan to develop an artist in residency programme, attracting both a performing and a visuals artist to a year long residency, with a brief to research Morley’s archive collections of music and visual arts.
The selected artists will collaborate with students and with each other to produce an accessible outcome of work that has been directly inspired by the archive materials researched.
Penny lecture sponsorship
Morley has a rich history which began in 1882 with a series of ‘Penny Lectures’ at the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo. The lectures were organised by our founder Emma Cons and beginning with “The Telephone or how to talk to a man a hundred miles away” and covered a wide range of interesting subjects such as ‘Why is the Sea Salt?’, ‘Curiosities of Insect Life’ and ‘Microscopic wonders of the sea.’ Topics were chosen to encourage new thinking and ideas and provided illustrated lectures at affordable prices…a penny! The lectures were a huge success, quickly developing into evening classes and the establishment of the “Morley Memorial College for Working Men and Women”. As the original ‘TED Talks’ the penny lectures began with subjects in science and technology, but broadened over the decades to include the arts and humanities.
A special 140th anniversary lecture will be held on September 9 2022. This special event, and the ongoing series of Penny Lectures are now available for sponsorship for the first time.
