I am a specialist in co-creation practices between arts organisations and communities, and I work as a programme director, researcher and faciliatator. 

I currently run Culture Within Newham, a fully co-created arts activity programme in East London in which local residents shape the cultural opportunities they would like to see in their borough. It aims to create engagement among audiences who are most underserved by the arts, and tests new approaches to creative collaboration.

I have come to this role after finishing my doctoral research with Tate and King’s College London, which looked at the potential for community co-creation and engagement work as a catalyst for organisational change. I spent three years researching the Tate Exchange project at Tate Modern in London, and also conducted fieldwork at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester and Queens Museum in New York. 

I am also a freelance consultant, researcher and facilitator, and speak at conferences and events internationally about co-creation, collaborative practice, community engagement, constituent museums, and cultural democracy. Sometimes I curate, produce or project manage exhibitions, research projects, and community engagement programmes.

If you would like to get in touch, I’m on stella.toonen@culturewithin.org.uk. I am also on LinkedIn.

A selection of my recent projects and publications:

2026

I am leading a study day on co-creation and making change in museums for Museum-iD on 10 November 2026.

I am working with Yinka Shonibare Studio again as a researcher on a new artwork.

2025

I was interviewed for King’s College London’s Careers in your Ears podcast about bringing my PhD experience into my arts career.

I led two sessions on community engagement and co-creation for University College London’s Creative Engagement Fellowship cohort.

I led a workshop on co-creation for the Thrive Leadership programme for academics at University College Dublin.

I led a study day for museum professionals on co-creation and change for Museum-iD at the Museum of London.

2024

I co-wrote a report for Arts Council England on how culture is tackling deprivation in Central London boroughs.

I wrote a toolkit for Hackney Libraries and Art School Plus about how libraries might collaborate with artists and communities in innovative ways.

I ran a workshop about co-creation at the ELJA Foundation’s symposium on youth participation in Amsterdam.

I co-ran a workshop for UCL’s Trellis Public Art programme on how public realm artists can work more ethically with communities.

I presented about collaborations between museums, artists, and communities as part of a panel discussion for a V&A course on museums working with artists.

2023

I wrote an essay on the rise of constituent museums in the ‘Constituent Museum Cook Book’ for the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

I presented at the Museum Ideas conference at the Museum of London with a talk about my PhD findings on co-creation and change.

I featured on the C-Word podcast, talking about public programming and community engagement work in museums.

I was a co-researcher and editor on Yinka Shonibare CBE’s ‘War Library’ art installation, which was exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery as part of the ‘Suspended States’ exhibition.

I led workshops on co-creation for the Thrive Leadership programme for academics at University College Dublin.

2022

I wrote a feature for Art Professional about Tate’s decision to discontinue the Tate Exchange programme.

I gave a keynote about co-creation at ‘The Participatory Site’, a symposium held by Kulturzentrum Schlachthof in Kassel during Documenta 15.

I gave a keynote and led the co-creation process for the Euroculture Intensive Programme summer school at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

I curated an exhibition of Krištof Kintera’s work for Heldenreizer Gallery in Munich, called ‘Thought Experiment’. I also joined a podcast from the Czech Cultural Centre in Berlin to talk about the exhibition.

I curated an exhibition of work by Art School Plus’s emerging public realm artists at Metropolitan Workshop in London.

I co-facilitated a training programme for Bexley Three Rivers to upskill their Bexley Collective on co-creation methodologies.

I contributed to a research case study about the city of Enschede in the Netherlands as an inclusive and sustainable creative economy model.

2021

I gave a keynote about co-creation for the ‘Collecting the City’ symposium at the Amsterdam Museum, of which a transcript is available. 

I had an academic article published in Museological Review that looks at co-creation in Covid-time. 

I published an article in Cultural Practice Magazine about the impact of Covid-19 on co-creation work at the Whitworth and at Queens Museum.

I wrote a reflection for the Year of Uncertainty platform on how Queens Museum is turning the concept of uncertainty into a new community practice.

I presented at the Creative Labour and Cultural Institutions CMCI Conference with a talk on opportunities for change in museums during Covid-19.

I was interviewed by the Lithuanian National Museum about collaboration, co-creation and co-design in museums, which you can listen to as a podcast. 

I was interviewed for Nina Vindum’s instructional video on conducting online research interviews, which ended up getting thousands of views.

2020

I wrote a review for Museums Galleries Scotland about the impact of museum work on education and employability.

I contributed to a research report on the creative workforce in Europe for the Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Creative Economies research project.

2019

I wrote a blog about the move towards co-creation practices in museums for the CMCI Blog at King’s College London.

2018

I wrote a feature for Are We Europe in which I propose museums may be able to save democracy by bringing in community voices.