I develop and produce arts activities and events within diverse communities in order to bring people together, explore social and environmental realities, enjoy creative processes and help to amplify under represented voices. Most of my projects and commissions are collaborative and cross many media.

I want to see a world where citizens have equal voices, are treated as experts in their neighbourhoods and are respectfully invited to participate in regeneration and change in our cities. A world where artists are valued for the way we innovate, adapt, reimagine, create and encourage others to do the same

“Collaboration, creativity, and community engagement with great energy and sensitivity are at the centre of everything that Anna does. She has a wonderful way of finding the magical in the marginalised. If only every community had an Anna!”

Professor Rachel Sara, Birmingham School of Architecture and Design

Latest Projects and Commissions

2022 Environmental Keywords Project, with the Centre for Environmental Humanities & Earth Sciences Dept, at the University of Bristol Participatory workshops in Barton Hill, Easton, St Philips & Hartcliffe, bringing together academics from multi disciplines, community organisations, including the Bristol Disability & Equality Forum, Eastside Community Trust and Heart of BS13 with creatives to determine how research can support communities equitably with climate change impacts and the cost of living.

2021 Acts of (In)visible Repair, the latest iteration of Lizzie Philps’ GPS Embroidery project, explored the unseen but essential networks within the urban environment of Exeter. We invited women and girls from different parts of the city to help us create GPS embroideries around the concept of repair. Through community mapping “walkshops” and an immersive audio performance, we shared the small but important ways we can enable biodiversity to thrive. This was one of six commissions from “Outside- the- Box”, which explored outdoor performances as a pandemic response. I was part of Lizzie’s artistic team along with Frances Merriman. I co-designed workshops, created an immersive audio track for the performances and made films for the Make Tank exhibition.

2020-2022 Home Print Project/Mobile Print Project With Spike Print Studio & Amy Hutchings, we produced printmaking packs and community based workshops with video and printed resources for young carers, disadvantaged families and refugees, partnering with Carers Support Centre and Bristol wide refugee support agencies.

Qualifications

• MA Independent Film & Video, London School of Media
• BA Fine Art (Sculpture and Media), Slade School of Art, UCL
• ILM Management for Creative Practitioners
• Community Organisers Certificate

Artists Networks and Freelance Clients & Commissioners

• Art within the Cracks
• Bricks Bristol Studio Holder at St Anne’s House, St Anne’s Road, BS4 4AB
• Spike Associates
• Play:Disrupt
• ArtSpace:LifeSpace
• Possible
• Spike Island Arts

Build the relationships before you build the thing

Damon Rich