- Ways we can work together -

I offer mentorship, workshops, and facilitated conversations around materiality, performance, textiles, community building and site responsiveness. This creative development can be for individuals, groups, institutions, and organisations.

Alongside my work as an artist, I have over 15 years’ experience supporting adults and young folk living with disabilities, lifelong conditions and neurodivergence, both as a social care worker and within the arts. This care experience completely shape my approach to accessibility, communication, and facilitation with the arts.

Community building is integral to my art practice. I believe in making art curious, accessible, engaging, and inclusive. Exploring and building creative confidence can offer connection, experimentation, pleasure, and a sense of belonging.

Much of my work takes place in outdoor and often rural locations, and I am particularly interested in collaborating with queer and community-led spaces, as well as organisations committed to building meaningful and reciprocal relationships with the communities around them.

If you would like to discuss working together, please email vivianmrosssmith[at]gmail[dot]com or send me a DM on Instagram.

Selected examples of my current and previous work include:

• Weekly support for neurodivergent artists through Access to Work funding.

• One-to-one mentorship for artists, supporting idea development and explorations in materiality, performance, textiles, and process-led practice.

• Lecturer in Visual Culture at UWE Bristol, Fine Art at Swansea College of Art, and Creative Industries at University of the Highlands and Islands.

• As Programme Coordinator at Gaada, I supported artists through weekly workshops focused on developing creative practice.

Selected workshops include:

• Textiles + Movement workshops responding to rivers for Peak Cymru’s Rural Stiwdio Programme.

• Animation workshops for adults and children funded through The Scottish Government’s Autism Strategy.

• Banner-making workshops for adults with disabilities on behalf of Project Ability and COP26.

• Embroidery workshops exploring some of the museums collections of tie on pockets at St Fagans National Museum of History Wales

• Workshop Leader for Shetland Arts’ Arts in Care programme over a three-year period. Offering weekly arts workshops in care settings.

• Drop-in workshops exploring fish leather making and stitching in Denmark, Newfoundland, and Shetland.

• Blanket-making workshops with The LGBTQ+ Blanket Project as part of my solo exhibition Holding Place.

• Queer Crafting workshops for Queertawe and at Out and Wild, the UK’s largest festival for lesbian, bi, trans, queer women, and non-binary people.