Socially Engaged Worker

I work on a range of workshops and projects engaging diverse groups including Framework (homeless charity),  Refugees, Mysight, Women’s Centre, Libraries, Dementia Care home settings, Caribbean Centre, Muslim Women’s groups as well as Outdoor Festival/ Events & Families.

My practice encompasses a strong foundation in participatory practices that are experience and process led. Working with  adults, young people, families and communities.

Creative Arts partners have included MK Gallery, CCA Derry (NI), Creative Health West Midlands, Wolverhampton Museum and Art Gallery, BEAF Arts Co, The Newbridge Project, Cultural Exchanges Festival, Attenborough Arts Centre, Chisenhale Dance, Newbridge, T.O.M.A at METAL, Primary, Ort Gallery, Newstead Abbey, Disability Arts Online, the National Justice Museum, Pushkin House, Bobby Baker/Daily Life Limited, , amongst more

My work is

• cross art form, encompassing visual art, craft, textile, sculpture, photography, drawing, digital media, as well as social performance practices, sound, movement, prop, mask and set making. This cross discipline approach brings alternative perspectives in working with play and participation.
• with groups who meet regularly, drop in groups and events, facilitating a range of inclusion and social needs barriers, a spectrum of physical impairments and in/visible dis/abilities.
• I’m always looking to offer a greater variety of activities appropriate to the diverse needs of groups and individuals.
• I strive to form inventive opportunities to nurture inclusivity, well-being, present creative challenges and spaces to do something new. Whilst fostering best practice to devise activity that is more tailored to the whole person/s.

Social Performance Practice

My practice includes a substantial body of work and collaborations with other makers on outdoor, roaming mobile pieces, promenades, tours, journeys that seek to engage the general public in conversations through playful and inventive exchanges. These works involve bespoke made objects, props and costumes to facilitate interaction. This feeds and closely aligns with my participatory and education work. In forming ideas I carefully consider and construct ideas, asking myself what interactions are valuable to the people I encounter.

There is No Wrong Answer

My artistic process is underlined by questions/stimuli that I respond to through play and experiment, which eventually lead to the making lots of creative decisions and choices. I invite participants to go through their own journeys, offer up opportunities to explore through playful modes and lead with their own intuitive choices. This meeting and work with communities highlights the intelligence and complexities with which all kinds of people engage with creativity and community.

Social & Community Change Making

I think deeply about the ecologies and communities I am invited to work with. I consider myself part of the fabric of wider and longer term work, societal change making and plan in conversation with community and group leaders. I also lead on change making activities and events in the Creative Sector such as For the Love of Labour, Social Art Summit workshops and more