Altered Places
2020

Altered Places was a four week residency programme, where established artists worked alongside artists from the ArtWorks group in Sheffield. These workshops culminated in a group exhibition that was open to the public, showing the new work they had created together.

ArtWorks is a not-for-profit creative arts organisation, inspiring and helping adults with learning disabilities to achieve their potential and develop important life skills through creative workshops and placements.

I worked with the ArtWorks artists in a workshop capacity to make a legacy publication for the project.

To free us up from any traditional sense of page layout, we looked at the collage work of Richard Hamilton, and set to work on our own, by using hundreds of printed video stills and documentary photos from the residency.

The group laid out pages based on how the images made them feel, rather than using traditional narratives or hierarchies. One page looks like a flower, another has a pink coat in every picture. Each page was made by and belonged to the artists in the group, and each page became a new artwork in its own right. With scissors and glue, the group had full creative control and were allowed to invest in the publication and re-capture the creative spirit of the residency.

The publication was produced as a limited edition, twenty-page newspaper and the group were officially given full ownership by each being credited as graphic designers on the cover.