I recently recognised that the method I use in making has always been through the structure of play, and it is with this realisation that I share my learning with others and create safe spaces for everyone to explore visual ideas together. I was a 90s graduate from the RCA and remembered even way back then that my thesis was researching the similarities a child has when playing with that of a person painting. I have always been dissatisfied to create images, yet accepting the fact that I was good with paint....a tricky link to try to dismantle. After a 20 ish year hiatus, I picked up making again and challenged every aspect of what I thought painting is and what it does....and after a few years I did make work that had infinite images, could be…

Hi there! My name is Allen Morris. I am a photographic artist originally from a small town in rural eastern Oregon, now living and teaching at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. Beyond photography, I am an avid baker, knitter, hiker, and coffee fiend - a generally caffeinated creative. My work uses all sorts of processes related to photography with a specific focus on the broad concept of Place. I'm very interested in how the places that we come from, the places that we live, and the geography that we call our own influences how we relate to the greater world. I am also interested in how those facets of our existence impact the opportunities that are afforded to us, the histories that we inherit and absorb, and how we define ourselves.

I am an interdisciplinary artist working across sculpture, painting, and installation. My work references body horror and the boundary-less nature of the body, examining the relationship of reproducing bodies within current biopolitical frameworks. Prodding at expanding posthuman potentialities of the body, my work investigates liberation and contradiction within synthetic biologies, and current notions of reproduction, gender, gestational labor, and family structures. My work serves as a surrogate for the body and the afflictions of bodily containment. I wrestle in the goo of abjection, subverting the marginalizing nature of disgust with materials like calcified latex, hair, and artificial teeth. Bodies here are unstable and boundary-less; biologically synthetic mutants that tamper with tactile relationships, promoting rapid aging, discoloration, and festering. I work in a space of untangling entrails, of autopsying contradictions. In assuming the role of the surrogate, these are bodies that grow and mature until I can leave, like a mother. Shedding my skin, repairing wounds, peeling blisters, picking scabs, and excreting the self, I scratch at the relationship of the body and the structural tendencies they exist in. The kinetic forms in my work challenge the biopolitics of reproducing bodies as subordinated vessels for collective future, suggesting an alternative posthuman relationship between power and reproduction. Drawing from feminist posthuman theory, my work challenges current notions of reproduction, gender, and family structures, suggesting alternative, cyborgian reimaginings of the body. Investigating liberation and contradiction within synthetic biology, these anatomies are birthed from the gut and play in the viscera. Shifting perspective on gestational labor and the leaky excess of bodily production, my work questions the decisions surrounding biotech, who has the authority to determine how human developments are distributed, and how these advancements can restructure liberation.

I'm a young Portuguese designer and developer; I created the studio/brand Complica (also based in Portugal), which explores the conjunction of Risography, design, and creative coding. I love experimenting with methods and trying something new when my creative output is near zero. Furthermore, I love combining these methods to create something that frequently clashes with itself but shows some level of uniqueness. With Complica, a lot of what I have experimented with is animation through Riso printing. After being a purely digital creator for years, Riso printing struck me with the physical aspect of creation. From zines, prints, and animations to a lot of editorial design, Riso made me explore a lot of new ground and allowed me to meet new people, connect with different communities, and put myself out there in ways I would have never done without this studio.

My name is Wako Ishiguro and I’m a Japanese painter. I moved from Tokyo to London last summer, and now I paint in oils in my studio almost every day. Like opening up the pores of one's skin, like cracking open one's brain, I wanted to place myself back within that state of flux, and so I moved away from the island. (An island again, I know!) I build my paintings out of presentness and immediacy, and in a sense, being "No reason" lies at my core. I believe that meaninglessness — and the power found in that very fragility — is the path toward authenticity. It may be a philosophical inquiry, or perhaps it's simply my most natural bodily mechanism.

Hi everyone! I’m Lael Reiss, originally from Israel and currently based in London. My practice is deeply rooted in exploring the human body and the intricate relationship between our physical form and the psyche's internal journey. I’m fascinated by how the mind's inner struggles and experiences leave their tangible mark on the physical body and the skin—and, in turn, how the external world perceives these hidden landscapes. For me, the creative process is essentially a form of serious play. I gather materials that captivate me in the moment and start experimenting with them in the studio. I test their limits in different states, juxtapose them with the body, sculpt them, and photograph them. It’s a process of continuous trial and error, a tactile conversation where things slowly begin to coalesce. In this fluid space between mediums, the camera acts as an extension of my hand—blurring the lines between a sculptural gesture and a photographic act. Excited to share more of my world with you this week!

Hi, I’m Elham Hemmat. I’m originally from a small town in Iran famous for its ceramics, and I’ve been living in the UK since 2019 after being awarded the Global Talent Visa for my artistic practice. I turned to art because I’ve always found it easier to communicate through making things rather than words. I’m quite introverted, long conversations can leave me exhausted, but I can happily disappear into the studio for days without noticing the time. My practice sits between graphic design (my day job) and ceramics, which I began teaching myself by quietly watching generational potters at local studios. I’m drawn to the quiet stories held in materials, especially clay: how soil from different places carries its own colour, personality, and unpredictable reactions in the kiln. The clay from my hometown, for example, is full of salt and creates beautiful, unexpected effects with glazes. Process for me is about staying open to what the material wants to do, even when it breaks. My recent Shadows series grew directly out of embracing those breaks and repairs, turning accidents into part of the language of the work. I’m excited to share more of the messy, hands-on side of things over the next few days.

I am a multimedia artist Massachusetts born, NYC bred, now rooted in South Carolina. I traded corporate life for the classroom and the studio and have gone back to my art roots. Process is everything. Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) is my philosophy. With TAB the journey isn’t a means to an end — it is the end. The result just shows up and guides next steps in an ongoing quest to look deeply into my psyche: things I feel, things I love, things I’m curious about, things I despise…

I’m currently on the edge of the world, aka Pembrokeshire, Wales. I got here after 34 years of travel via Kent, Glasgow, Warsaw and Bristol. My practice mostly involves a lot of experimental approaches to collage and land art. Cutting things weird or stealing away tiny fragments of mountains, oceans and valleys, then losing them again. I use my process to stay connected, it keeps me anchored, attached and active. It also keeps me excited. I have always been in love with art, even when I have hated it. And I have always strived to push my understanding of what art actually is and what it can do.

I recently recognised that the method I use in making has always been through the structure of play, and it is with this realisation that I share my learning with others and create safe spaces for everyone to explore visual ideas together. I was a 90s graduate from the RCA and remembered even way back then that my thesis was researching the similarities a child has when playing with that of a person painting. I have always been dissatisfied to create images, yet accepting the fact that I was good with paint....a tricky link to try to dismantle. After a 20 ish year hiatus, I picked up making again and challenged every aspect of what I thought painting is and what it does....and after a few years I did make work that had infinite images, could be…

My name is Anastasiia Lodde. I am a visual artist with a background in science. I was born in a village in southern post-Soviet Russia, in a multicultural family, and I grew up with my grandmothers close to me. I turned to art after moving to Denmark. Migration, family archives, and the political reality around me slowly reshaped my path. In my work, I return to questions of migration, identity, and family history. I work with painting, performance, sculpture, and installation, and I often collect fragments of stories from other immigrants. Bright colour, light, fish, and everyday objects appear again and again, becoming part of my visual language.

Shirly’s practice over the past few years has been marked by relentless exploration, a process through which she continually expands her possibilities of expression. She first discovered this in the underground scenes of Beijing and its nightlife subcultures, and later realised that practice both pre-exists being found and outlives us all. Considering the past and the future, her work is rooted in artistic research that takes oral stories, urban myths, rumours and peculiar daily rituals as starting points. She examines how we form emotional bonds with soundscapes, spatial dynamics, social interactions, and subcultural expressions, and what becomes of them over time. Through sculpture, video, sound, and site-specific interventions, disorientation has emerged as a method in her practice. Disorientation can create absurdities, and a unique blurry tension between humour and repulsion, allowing playfulness to be serious and seriousness to be playful. In this blurriness, the possibilities of the night can appear in the middle of the day. The relentless task is to become blurry; to form constellations from the separate and disparate, and to make sense of their newly found togetherness.