Natalie Johns

I am a writer and a visual artist. I am passionate about intersectional inclusion and my practice supports people to express their identities and experiences through creative writing and visual art. I believe that story-telling through words and images is a powerful tool for building and strengthening communities. My skills include workshop facilitation, and event and project planning and management. I focus on creating inclusive communities, whether for a one off workshop or a long term plan. If you want to ignite imaginations and inspire empathy, I am ready to work with you. I am also a post graduate researcher in Creative Writing at the University of Portsmouth.

I am an Arts educator and have been working at a local Secondary School – Bridgemary School for nearly two decades. In that time we have attained Artsmark Gold status for consecutive applications and this year attained Trinity Champion Centre for 25-26 due to our work around embedding ArtsAward into our STEAM projects.

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.