Wysing Young Disabled Artists

Artist Louise Ashcroft designed and facilitated a series of workshops with young people at Wysing Arts Centre for 5 consecutive weeks throughout May-July. The workshops culminated in a multi-sensory sculpture trail, launched on the evening of Wednesday 8 July for friends and family of the young people involved.

Using their sensory imaginations, the young people created fake evidence of strange happenings at Wysing Arts Centre through storytelling and sensory experimentation, with a range of art materials and processes such as clay, performance, recording equipment, description, natural found objects from the site at Wysing Arts Centre, and whatever else they could think of.

Ashcroft drew inspiration from responses received from people online in response to their practice, who believed the artist's sculptural objects were “fake” AI generated images rather than artworks made by the artist's own hand. The workshops employed a multi-sensory approach to explore different ways of creating and myth-making beyond "what can be seen to be believed". The trail took place throughout Wysing Arts Centre and the surrounding landscape, including atmospheric woods, secret cabins and open fields.

You can see photos of the trail and the launch on DASH's Flickr.
 

Louise Ashcroft Biography:

Louise Ashcroft (born 1983 in West Yorkshire, lives and works in London) is an artist who uses fiction to ask difficult questions about society in playful ways; questions about how we live, who is in charge, and what we want to change. Louise's projects often take the form of films, radio, participatory experiences, theatre performance, writing, drawing and sculpture. Last year they were Wysing Arts Centre's Artist in Residence at St Peter's School Huntingdon, working with pupils to reimagine the school and its rules using drawing and video. Louise likes to work with collaborators, have conversations and learn from the people they collaborate with. They have worked with leading arts organisations such as Tate, Camden Art Centre and the BBC, and recently made a series of spoof adverts for fictional technology in collaboration with comedians at Edinburgh Art Festival. Louise is a Lecturer at Goldsmiths University where they are a member of the Centre for Art and Ecology. They studied at Oxford University and Birkbeck College, University of London, and have been practicing as an artist since 2004. They have ADHD and dyspraxia.

Louise Ashcroft is Wysing Arts Centre's Young People's Artist-in-Residence. The Young People's artist-in-residence for 2026/27 is partially supported by DASH with funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Art Fund, with support from the John Armitage Charitable Trust. The residency is delivered in partnership with DASH as part of the Future Curators Programme (FCP). Wysing Arts Centre is a member of the FCP Network.