Harry is a cultural historian and writer, and a project-maker with twenty years' experience of heritage, arts, broadcasting, and information projects. He has a particular interest in architecture, landscape, and sense of place; memory, time, and legacy; and archives and collections — and how these themes relate to visual culture and creative practice, drawing on his original vocation as a designer.

harry@harrywillisfleming.co.uk

Biography

In 2011, Harry was awarded a History MRes degree (Master of Research with Distinction) from the University of Southampton, a member of the Russell Group.  He was a speaker at Architectural History between Cultures: Theories and Methodologies (2011) at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.  He is a working group member for the forthcoming Records to Revels, a Heritage Lottery-funded exploration of Tudor Southampton.  He recently presented a paper at the Myth and Memory Humanities conference (2011) at Southampton University, gave a talk at An Ursula Moray Williams evening (2011) at Hampshire County Record Office, and was a panel member for 'The Great War and the Visual Arts' (2010) at King's College, London.

Harry wrote and presented Vapourtrain for BBC Radio 3 (broadcast 23 May 2009), exploring how steam railway travel transformed notions of time, space, and place.  He was researcher/contributor for One Way to the Necropolis (2005), a feature programme on the Brookwood Necropolis Railway for BBC Radio 4.  He continues to write a novel, which is also set on the Victorian railways. 

In 2005 Harry instigated the Circle of Willis Project and formed The Willis Fleming Historical Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that seeks to remember and represent the heritage of the Willis Fleming family in imaginative and pioneering ways.  The Trust is not a traditional history society or family archive; rather, it seeks to bring a spirit of antiquarianism into the present age. The Trust also celebrates the fragmentary, dispersed, and problematic nature of the heritage.  The Trust's projects have strands of research, conservation, education, and art, and draw on the heritage to explore wider cultural themes. The ongoing practical work of the Trust includes collecting artefacts, cataloguing and preserving papers, researching and recording information, championing the care and maintenance of monuments, and raising the heritage's profile. 

The Trust's website (willisfleming.org.uk) has been called 'an exemplary illustration of how relatively esoteric historical information can be presented online' (Things Magazine 2010).  The Trust has an emphasis on working with individuals and organisations as collaborators, and undertaking projects with strong elements of public engagement.  Stoneham Field Tent Museum with Jane Wildgoose installed a temporary museum on the site of North Stoneham House.  The Muniment Room is a collaborative 'wiki' that is investigating the ways in which people, places, and documents link together across the four centuries of the Fleming Estate's history.  Browne Willis's Library is creating a database and guide to the dispersed contents and output of the antiquary's library.  In Vitro Veritas is a collaboration with Vidmus magazine to examine the heraldic programme of painted glass formerly at St Nicolas Church, North Stoneham.  The Catalogue of Dispersed Objects is a register of artefacts that have been lost or destroyed, or are otherwise now 'scarce or never seen by any man now living'.  

Harry's most significant project with the Trust is the present Heritage Lottery-funded restoration of the Stoneham War Shrine in partnership with Eastleigh Borough Council, and in collaboration with Hampshire County Council and several others.  The derelict Shrine (built 1917-18) is being returned to its original condition, and the wider project is furthering the conservation of the historic parkland where the monument stands and using the Shrine as a key to unlocking the history of the local landscape through a programme of public events and an exhibition.  As a fundraiser, he has written many successful applications and reports, and secured funding from a range of organisations. As manager of the associated public engagement project, he has written and compiled a printed history guide, produced interpretative displays, and coordinated a programme of events, including talks by historians.  The project has involved much research, examining the wider war shrine movement and its links with the Arts and Crafts movement; and interpreting the North Stoneham landscape.  During 2010, the war diaries of 2nd Lieut. Richard Willis Fleming (1896-1916) were transcribed and published daily as a weblog, Dick's Diary.  

Harry designed Spirit of place (2007), a virtual memorial commissioned by Arts in Healthcare (East Sussex NHS Hospitals Trust) to commemorate the former All Saints Hospital in Eastbourne.

He designed the virtual face of The Wildgoose Memorial Library (2004-6).  He was production assistant on the award-winning The Loneliest Road (2003) by Gregory Whitehead for BBC Radio 3 (Best Drama, Sony Radio Academy Awards, 2004).  He co-designed/produced several incarnations of Gregory Whitehead's The Bone Trade, including an installation at Mass MOCA, Massachusetts, a live event in London, and bonetrade.com (2003).  He was digital designer for Viewing the Instruments (2003), a touring musical theatre production.

Harry trained in Theatre Design at Wimbledon School of Art, where he gained his degree.    After leaving college in 1994, he designed sets for theatre shows including Ghetto and Hamlet (both Riverside Productions, Oxford) and four shows at the 1994 Edinburgh Fringe.  He wrote and directed a short film, I'll Remember April (1994).  He was the digital designer of Lord David Owen's Balkan Odyssey CD-ROM (1996), a political memoir backed up by multimedia references and video footage. He co-conceived and produced Strands (1997), a performance and broadcast event at a disused London Underground station with Gregory Whitehead, Michelle Griffiths, and others, for Austrian Radio (ORF) and the European Broadcasting Union.

From 1997 he was managing director of HWF Creative, a design consultancy specialising in the presentation of educational information in print and multimedia formats.  He secured a coveted contract from London Underground to design an integrated print and multimedia product; and went on to win accounts and projects for major UK companies and public bodies, including Railtrack (later Rail Safety & Standards Board), Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, The Wellcome Trust, University of Westminster, Virgin Group, WS Atkins, and Volkswagen.