This body of work was created during a residency with Echoes of Holloway Prison, London.

The DIRT Project consists of songs, poetry, images, art objects and films inspired by the infamous HMP Holloway. Once the largest women’s prison in Europe, it was controversially closed in 2016.

The DIRT EP features six songs written to honour the stories of the prison’s women and workers. It was released as a digital download on a special edition soap. The EP was recorded by my band, Burning Salt.

A film inspired by the EP’s title track was created by Florence Pierre and Gordon Spooner, with a physical interpretation of the song by Louise Mada-Lina.

A booklet of poetry and images, entitled Echoes, includes a selection of photographs taken inside the empty prison by Roz Currie. The palette of the booklet was based on the colours of the prison walls and floors.

More photos of the prison are featured in the video for ‘The Worst Place I Was Ever Scared Of (A Love Letter to Holloway Prison)’, filmed by Bobby Williams.

Limited-edition DIRT Dishcloths, featuring goldwork on basic white dishcloths, were hand-embroidered by Hanny Newton.

The EP can be downloaded via www.burningsalt.com.

EP credits:

Vocals/Guitar/Piano/Written by: Hannah Hull. Electric Guitar/Produced by: Bobby Williams. Double Bass: John Parker. Drums: Iain Ross. Backing vocals: Chaps Choir. Mastered by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios.

Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).

Madlove (2014-2018) created positive spaces to experience mental distress… and enlightenment.

We radically re-imagined mental health care through ‘pop-up asylums’, workshops, training and consultancy.

As part of our research, we asked hundreds of people with personal experience of mental health: ‘If you could design your own asylum, what would it look like?’

We brought together people with and without mental health experiences, mental health professionals and academics, artists and designers – and everyone else on the spectrum.

Madlove received a commendation from the Design in Mental Health Awards (2015) and support from Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust, Unlimited, British Pyschological Society and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Major Commissions.

Group Therapy. FACT, Liverpool. 2015.

Bedlam: The Asylum and Beyond. Wellcome Collection, London. 2016.

Broadmoor Hospital, West London NHS Trust. In collaboration with Projects Office and MUF Architecture/Art. 2016/17.

UK Workshops.

Southbank Centre | Fierce Festival | Nottingham Contemporary | NAGAS | FACT | Bethlem Royal Hospital NHS | Broadland Clinic NHS | Broadmoor Hospital NHS | Core Arts | Guild Lodge NHS | East London NHS Trust | Kings College

International Workshops.

Homo Novus/Riga Mental Health Hospital (Latvia) | De Bascule (Amsterdam) | Dr Guislain Hospital (Ghent) | Gessnerallee (Zurich)

Working with Madness Training.

Wellcome Collection | FACT Liverpool | Nottingham Contemporary | HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin)

This project was a collaboration with the vacuum cleaner.

ART vs REHAB is a series of free, downloadable tool kits, podcasts and essays for people working in socially-engaged art; including those working creatively in addiction, the criminal justice system, homelessness and mental health.

The collaboratively developed tool kits are a catalyst for criticality and change in the field, based on the principles of open innovation. Each kit contains a series of Critical Tasks.

They cover six themes:

Artists vs Art Therapists

Criticality and Evaluation within a Culture of Optimism

The “Other” and the Mental Health History of Practitioners

Providing and Promoting Social Inclusion: One in the Same?

The Role of Art Institutions in Art Outreach

The Role of Art Practitioners’ Own Art Practice

These themes emerged in conversation with contributors including: NHS, BBC Arts, Mind, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Lankelly Chase Foundation, CALMzone, University of Arts Magazine, CIDA (Cultural Industries Development Agency), Artsdepot, Queen Mary’s, Goldsmiths, Look Ahead, The Camden Society, The Bluecoat, BPP Law School, Bath Spa University, London Borough of Lambeth and Studio Upstairs.

This project was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and by ICCE, TCCE and C4CC.

For further information and to download the Tool Kits visit www.artvsrehab.com.

Illustrations by Jo Buchan.

A collaboration with seven young voice hearers, aged 14-19, to create a significant body of work as part of the Wellcome Collection exhibition ‘THIS IS A VOICE’ (2016), London.

The young people attended six day-long workshops that creatively explored their thoughts, responses and experiences around voice hearing. The group was recruited by the Voice Collective, part of Mind in Camden.

The workshops provided an insight into a range of conceptual art movements - including Dada, Fluxus and Situationist International - to stimulate the creative thinking and direction of the group. Each week I responded to the interests of the group when developing the next session.

The main piece created was ‘Everyday Objects Belonging to a Voice Hearer / Everyday Objects Belonging to a Non Voice Hearer’. The viewer enters a futile game of trying to distinguish between two sets of similar objects, evoking their own preconceptions of which a voice hearer might own.

The group also created individual artwork concepts (illustrated by Rosemary Cunningham), a series of provocations, and badges and T-shirts that were worn around the exhibition and beyond.

Three-month residency based on an abandoned plot in Digbeth, the industrial heart of Birmingham, ‘a site on the edge of public memory’.

Local people with a social and historical connection to the area were invited to contribute to a ‘funeral’, to mark and process the sense of loss that had been aroused through the regeneration of Digbeth.

The ceremony was not documented, and now solely exists within the oral tradition of the area.

Commissioned by Behind Closed Doors and supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

A collaboration with young women from New Horizon Youth Centre (a day centre working with young people who are vulnerable, homeless or at risk) to design a visual campaign for display at the Wellcome Collection, London.

Over eight sessions, the group explored their ideas and opinions on issues such as mental health, sexual health, role models, body image and nutrition.

The campaign was formed of two sections: one containing slogans and statements of protest generated by the group, and the other featuring everyday products with subverted health warnings.

During the workshops the young people responded to the ‘Provocation’ section of the Wellcome Collection exhibition ‘Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?’ (2017).

At the launch event, the public could try out activities from the workshops, such as banner and badge making, and were invited to take a pack of Protest Confetti to throw as a temporary act of rebellion in their daily lives.

Commissioned by the Wellcome Collection Youth Programme.

Documentation of a series of London-based projects in which I explored and challenged the notion of Outsider Art, to inform a more critical approach to socially-engaged art.

‘First Time Gallery’ [2008] featured the work of 12 non-artists who I mentored to take over my allocated space at Goldsmiths' BA Fine Art Degree Show.

‘Open Gallery’ [2008] was a conceptual art programme and exhibition featuring the work of vulnerable adults who had no previous art training. I ran the project with Open Book, who help people with non-traditional backgrounds access higher education.

‘Reframed’ [2009] was a dialogue between “outsider” and “insider” artists, resulting in an exhibition at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery. Participants included Simon Anderson, Colin Barrass, Than Hussein Clark, Alberto Duman, Ben Eastop, Richard Gildea, Sophie Hope, Ibrahim Kirimli, Jamie Lane, Oliver MacDonald, John Reardon, Trish Stevenson, George Westren, John Wood and Laura Wilson.

A series of 6 x 3-hour weekly workshops aimed at artists who want to work in prisons, developed in consultation with prison arts practitioners across Europe.

Participants are invited to challenge the very foundations of their practice, and to reach new conclusions about their ways of working.

The course is intended to catalyse and develop artists’ critical position and approach to working in prisons. It is full of critical tasks and exercises designed by like-minded artists; this lends a sense of collectivity in the mission to prioritise critical thinking in social art projects.

Students develop an understanding of their own politics in relation to crime and the prison system, and how these will sit within the prison environment

The participant group is curated to ensure a mix of disciplines and levels of experience, including those who are already working in prisons and want to rethink their methods. This allows everyone to learn from each other and form strong bonds for mutual support.

As part of the course, each student is supported to develop a fully-formed proposal for a prison-based arts project. Several students have successfully realised their projects following the course, including securing funding.

The session topics are:

Introduction to Critical Thinking and the Role of Art in the Criminal Justice System

Our Perceptions and Representation of Crime

Your artistic values and aims - and navigating the prison context with them

Looking at the discrepancies between intent and result of case studies in preparation for designing our own concepts

Re-languaging your Art in Prison concepts for a range of stakeholders

Focus on delivery and tweaking your model, and thinking about funding and evaluation

The course was originally developed as part of an EU-wide project by Cred-ability, in partnership with the London College of Teachers and funded by the Leonardo da Vinci Programme, and I now deliver the course on request, most recently for FACT Liverpool.

A long-term, open brief residency over four years on the Johnson Fold social housing estate in Bolton, a former mill town in Northern England.

I chose to celebrate and invest in the existing culture of the estate - including karaoke, tattoos and scooter boys. I supported residents to recognise their own creativity. and to feel more confident when discussing art.

You can see residents talking about their experience of the project - and the full body of work produced - in this short film made by Huckleberry Films.

This project was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and by Bolton at Home.

A mini-residency in Barrow-in-Furness, focused on exploring the issue of the town’s nuclear industry.

I produced three responses intended to provoke dialogue: a proposal for a public artwork to publicly honour their controversial trade; a poem exploring the texture of the area’s hushed relationship with nuclear technology; and a poster in response to the ‘Love Barrow’ branding campaign, suggesting engagement with - rather than diversion from - the nuclear debate.

This residency was part of Revisioning Utopia, a collaborative project between artists and architects exploring regeneration, hosted by Art Gene.

A series of interviews and photographic portraits of female ex-workers of the Longbridge car factory, in collaboration with Stephen Burke.

Longbridge was the first and oldest car factory in Britain, employing 25,000 people at its peak. It was the beating heart of the community that had been built around it. It closed its gates in 2016 after 111 years of production, leaving a deep wound.

My interviews document the changing attitudes towards women who worked in the male-dominated factory environment. Covering several eras, they also offered an insight into the changing approach to labour throughout the factory’s life.

The exhibition showcased the overlooked stories of the Women of Longbridge, and aimed to provide strong female role models for the next generation.

This work was part of a residency commissioned by WERK as part of Longbridge Public Art Project, funded by Arts Council West Midlands, Birmingham City University, Bournville College, St. Modwen and Birmingham City Council.