Louise Grassby

Leeds Pride 2025
Festival Activity and Material

Roots and Routes with Allerton
Creative Workshops

Oriental Museum
Workshops and Community Engagement

Green Libraries Week 2024
Exhibition Material

Oriental Museum
Workshops and Community Engagement

St Thomas’ Hospital
Creative Workshops

Roots and Routes with Allerton
Creative workshops

The Melting Pot
Workshops and Community Engagement

Resilient Pathway Connections
Workshops

Thackray Museum
Workshops and Community Engagement

The Melting Pot
Workshops and Community Engagement

Resilient Pathway Connections
Workshops

Unmasking Pain
Creative Workshops

Willow Tree Academy Residency
Delivered a talk to 120 teachers

Reflections of an Indian Dancer
Illustrations

Roots & Routes
Creative Walks and Maps for Artists

A Shakespeare Impromptu
Shakespeare Flashmob at the Lowry

Over the last 12 months working with BSDC I have continued to develop and expand my own creative thinking through the interesting and varied projects that I have been asked to participate in. The originality in Balbir’s work means that I can draw upon skills and knowledge I already have but use my imagination to take work a step further. Working with other high-quality creative practitioners means that I learn from them too whilst collaborating on projects. To combine visual art with the interpretation of dance, music, words and actions allows me to take my thinking and art down roads I would not have otherwise explored. This can sometimes feed into other work that I do, both when creating artwork for myself or when I am working with groups who are learning how to do art. 

The sky is always the limit at BSDC, and so endless possibilities are part of the creative process and I appreciate having that arena to explore and solve problems, create, make, change and start again. That also can sometimes take a great deal of energy and resilience but what I have learned is that it always works out and together, we make it happen. Besides, I love a challenge! I have more positive self-talk because of the work I do with BSDC, and do not limit myself by thought when I am working creatively as much as I did before. Fear and procrastination have also reduced.

It is always difficult to pick a key highlight, because there are many of them for varied reasons: the artists I work with, the response of the audience/participants, the work that I accomplished which could have been more challenging than something done before. So, in terms of participants’ responses I would say the INSET day at Willow Tree Academy Trust was amazing in several ways:

My other highlight in terms of scale of project, challenges and changes which made it exciting, must be the Shakespeare Impromptu. A key part of set design and creating visual support and props for events is listening to what the Creative Director and choreographer need and understanding what their vision is. Adapting the project to changing variables only meant we had to be even more creative than we were to begin with, the energy of everyone involved on the day who wanted to make this work was a notable example of the teamwork I have been a part of at BSDC. It was a challenge which reinforced my confidence in myself.

New skills development was required for this project at the Lowry too. As part of the set design, I needed to create a joint piece of artwork for a midnight forest backdrop. This meant quickly learning how to “paint” on an iPad using software that was new to me. I was collaborating with both a graphic designer who was going to add illustrations of characters to the scene, and the audio/visual technician who was going to turn the piece into an animation. I enlisted the support of another visual artist to teach me how to develop my artwork electronically in layers and I was proud of what I achieved. This is a skill I would use again, despite it being outside of my comfort zone.

On the Roots & Routes project I worked with more than one visual artist which was an experience that broadened my own creative thinking because we each brought our own perspectives to the table whilst sharing common ways of thinking. We co-created visual material for a book showing creative maps and I really valued their input and reflections on my work so it could be developed to meet the needs of the project.  Working as a visual artist on my own is essential at times but there are times when collaborating with other like-minded artists is immensely valuable to reflecting on my work and developing it.

My work for these creative maps was also informed by two musicians, two dancers and a photographer with whom I had done outdoor creative walks with before. Trying to get underneath how they interpreted nature in Gledhow Valley Woods led to me creating work which was different to my own interpretation of these spaces.

Resilience for me can be about the ability to develop my artistic skills and create work I have never created before – BSDC gives me opportunities in every project to stretch myself. Resilience is also about doing my own research (e.g. A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and using this to inform my work. Resilience can also be about going with the flow on the project once it is underway and realising that not only does creativity take twists and turns, but so does the project itself depending on outside variables. I aim to use my instincts to make the most out of any given moment whilst working. Looking for opportunities and being open to endless possibilities is an essential part of being able to keep “moving” through the work, alongside the team. In terms of mental health, I guess one of the key positives here is that once a project begins in front of the participants and audience, total awareness of being in the moment is essential so that I can respond appropriately to the other artists that I am working with. I hope I have got better at this as time has gone on. Looking, listening to and trusting the others I have worked with have built up that resilience and confidence in myself at a faster pace than I otherwise may have done in the rest of my practice. Underpinning this is the direction of Balbir and the way in which I have come to understand from him that my work is valued and that what I bring to the table is both original and useful. That has helped my self-belief and growth in my work and in myself.