Alia

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 deliver learning, engagement, interpretation and digital comms. My website has examples of what I can deliver. I work in a couple of ways – Off-the-shelf – I have existing packages I can tweak to meet your needs if you’re looking for work around reminiscence, training or family workshops. Bespoke – if you’re looking for support with a project or new activity including exhibition text, trails, consultation etc. Coming from a land-based background, I have a particular interest in rural communities and issues around land-based occupations, community and heritage. I have a portfolio career made up of freelance work, a part-time job, and 3 part-time, freelance clients. #portfoliocareer #manyhats #freelance  

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.