Jasper Smithers

I am an artist living on the edge of The New Forest. I use folklore, folksong, old customs, games and rituals to explore contemporary issues particularly social and economic disparity. Country living can be a strange mix of bounty and hopelessness but when people have access to their own strong and sinuous roots, their own history and stories they have anchorage and hope. I seek the stories that connect us and as an artist I’m thinking of different ways of pinning them up on the metaphorical village hall notice board for all to see. Alongside my own practice I run drawing workshops as The Village Hall Draw and community workshops around the New Forest working with Culture in Common and Hampshire Cultural Heritage amongst others.

I am a children’s playwright, poet and community creative writing facilitator. With fifteen years experience working in the sector, I have had multiple plays for primary school age children to perform published and have had works for children and families commissioned from theatres and arts organisations. My playwrighting focus is on inclusive history that is curriculum-adjacent or locally relevant and I’m particularly passionate about amplifying the stories of marginalised women and girls from the past. I work with schools and in the community delivering a range of bespoke workshops to young people, families and to those living with dementia and their carers.

I am a multi-disciplinary artist, and freelance illustrator and designer specialising in arts education, book arts, stop-frame animation, model making, and graphic design. I am a part-time lecturer on the BA Illustration course at the University of Portsmouth in the School of Architecture, Art and Design. I run my small-press publishing platform, Micro Library Books, exhibiting at illustration fairs in the UK and internationally, and since 2001 I have co-run an arts education partnership, Borbonesa, founded with fellow artists. The arts education projects I work on often focus on wellbeing and community, such as Stories in Transit, which aims to establish the right of displaced individuals to cultural expression.