LATEST NEWS

Spring 2024

Now live: We Roar tour

The We Roar tour of artworks and poetry by 40 people in UK and US prisons runs from January 2024, culminating in an international symposium in November. A fitting development of the ground-breaking We Bear project (that received an amazing 56k visitors in the UK and even more in the US), it's been a joy creating We Roar with participants, mentors and key partners Novus, PCAP and the University of Warwick. We're calling for feedback for exhibitors and comments on the project impact, so please do use the feedback form for these.

In progress: Four Seasons

Community engagement workshops are underway with four groups to co-design exciting new sculptures for the parkland at National Trust Croome. The resulting outdoor artworks, responding to the site and the themes of the Four Seasons, will reflect collaboration with the groups, including looked after children, men at HMP Hewell, women supported by Joy in Malvern and National Trust volunteers. Installation of the resulting sculptures is planned for October 2024.

In progress: Hidden Stories

I've been working with military spouses to create new artworks around themes of belonging and identity and will soon be extending the project to work with young care leavers. Using archives from Warwickshire Libraries and local records, the workshops gather responses and co-produce artworks that will result in an exhibition later in 2024.

Near Belonging

Near Belonging toured four Warwickshire venues 2022-23 and was screened within the Commonwealth Games CultureFest. The project evolved with residents using a discovery of lost portraits to explore belonging in many forms, including asylum, prejudice, family and refuge. It's captured in a project summary film and blog posts.

I See You Anew

A publication from my New Art Gallery Walsall lockdown residency has been acquired for the gallery's permanent collection. I asked children being home-schooled by parent artists to make a response to their parents' work. These consider parent-child home-work relationships challenged through lockdown and provide valuable new perspectives on wider issues of social and personal inheritance.

PROJECT LEGACIES ONLINE

A number of recent projects can now be accessed online, sharing project legacies in various ways:

Room for the Soul

Room for the Soul was co-created for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) with the Forest of Hearts Green Therapy Group, exploring participants’ personal memories of people and nature in a series of workshops. The online book now ensures a legacy for the project journey of building trust and confidence to encourage creativity.

Listening To The Land

The Listening To The Land webpage is now live, showcasing the portraits and recordings I gathered about the present and future of a SSSI area of the Shropshire Hills. It explores many of the rewards and challenges faced in farming, conservation, tourism and leisure and is also available as a publication (more details here).

Plants, Prisons & Potential

First devised for the Royal Horticultural Society with HMP Send, I developed Plants, Prison & Potential with HMP Hewell, delivering a programme around gardening, the build environment and wellbeing in incarceration. This resulted in a number of artworks, including meadow mural paintings shown in this project film. The original project with HMP Send is also available as a moving RHS online exhibition.

This commission is being delivered via my new not-for-profit company Creeq. Please have a look at the Creeq website and socials to follow more project news.