Wysing: Young Disabled Artists

Young Disabled Artists (YDA) Programme with Wysing Arts Centre:
What On Earth Could Have Happened Here?

Since May, DASH has supported artist Louise Ashcroft to design and facilitate a series of workshops with young people at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire to take place every Thursday.

So far, over 4 consecutive weeks, the young people have explored forms of storytelling, sensory play and experimentation with a range of art materials and processes such as clay, performance, recording equipment, description and natural found objects from the site at Wysing Arts Centre.

Last Thursday 18 June, members of the DASH team joined the penultimate workshop entitled ‘Dig, Dig, Dig’ which explored surprise, texture and imagination building on the stories told collectively and individually by the young people through previous workshops to produce objects from the fictional world that can act as revealed/concealed evidence for future visitors to uncover through an archaeological excavation that will take place in a sensory trail.

Revisiting the site at Wysing Arts centre following their first workshop, Ashcroft led the group to forage for flora and fauna to decorate the wrappings concealing the clay artefacts. Being led by sensory discovery, participants found moss, oak leaves, twigs, stones, soil, wildflowers, herbs such as mint and quite of lot nettles. As the workshop came to a close, the group were encouraged to think about the messages that future selves would find during the archaeological discoveries.

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.