Celebrated artist, Jason Wilsher-Mills MBE, has invited people from Blackpool to collaborate on the creation of a new sculpture. The sculpture will be jointly presented as part of this year’s Lightpool Festival (15 October – 1 November) and as part of Grundy’s autumn programme. (17 October – 20 December)
On a research visit to Blackpool, the artist, Jason Wilsher- Mills, spent hours drawing dancers in the Tower Ballroom and this can be seen reflected in the shape that the sculpture takes – a dancing couple. The artist has also reflected the town’s broader relationship with other dance cultures, such as Northern Soul – with the two dancing figures wearing badges.
The designs for these badges were developed by the participants of a series of workshops led by Grundy Art Gallery. These workshops were delivered in collaboration with LeftCoast, Blackpool and the Fylde Collage, Blackpool Council Adult Services and the Creative Fusion and saw a range of people involved, including children and young people, members of the community of Claremont and Revoe and artists from the pARTnership – a professional development project led by the Grundy for learning-disabled artists.
In these workshops participants were asked to draw what they loved about Blackpool. Wilsher-Mills then digitally interacted with each of these drawings, putting them together into a series show-reels. Presented on circular screens on the body of each of these dancing figures, these show-reels will provide an ever-changing display of badge designs
Made alongside the people of the town – the DNA of Blackpool is contained within Jason Wilsher-Mill’s new sculpture and the fact that the artwork is being jointly acquired into the collections of Grundy Art Gallery and Lightpool also means that there will be a permanent legacy for this community collaboration.
LeftCoast – Claremont Group – early August tbc
The pARTnership – Friday 15 August
Creative Fusion – Thursday 28 August
The sculpture is being co-commissioned by Grundy Art Gallery and Lightpool Festival and will be acquired into these organisation’s collections.
The Grundy Art Gallery was founded by the brothers Cuthbert and John Grundy in 1911 with the ambition to show the best art of the day to the people of Blackpool. It has been at the centre of artistic life in Blackpool for over 100 years and is now recognized as a leading contemporary visual arts venue in the northwest region with a growing national and international profile. It has been an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation for the past 8 years and holds Museums Accreditation status.
Grundy’s current position has been achieved through ambitious and contextual programming, which makes the most of its beautiful exhibition spaces and the unique cultural environment and context which exists beyond the gallery walls.
Grundy inspires audiences through an ambitious and varied year-round exhibitions programme that draws on the unique and invigorating context and heritage of Blackpool, for instance exploring the space between contemporary art, entertainment and popular culture.
Blackpool is an extraordinary location of rich cultural history and contemporary popular culture and Grundy’s programmes continue to explore these and add new perspectives to help better understand and appreciate them, working with key national and regional partners such as TATE, Southbank Centre/Hatward Touring, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, the British Council, the ICA, the Whitworth Art Gallery and LeftCoast.
Grundy continues to develop it’s permanent collection, embedding it into our of high quality temporary exhibitions programme and providing opportunities for audiences to think in new and unexpected ways through art.
Grundy is committed to developing Blackpool’s cultural offer through an engagement with high quality contemporary art exhibitions and events for both visitors and residents of the town. It contributes to the visitor economy in Blackpool, attracting higher spending visitors, generating press and promoting the town centre as a sub-regional centre and helping to sustain jobs in the local creative economy.
“My work celebrates disability, my northern working-class heritage & popular culture, through cutting edge technologies and brightly coloured, largescale humorous, but challenging art. When asked what my work is about, I simply say – ‘Think ‘I, Daniel Blake’ meets ‘The Beano’”
I am an artist who was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire in 1969. I grew up in a large working-class family, on council estates. I fell ill with chicken pox in 1980, when I was 11 years old, with the virus attacking my central nervous system, causing me to be confined to a wheelchair.
This experience has been pivotal in my own creative practice, as my work reflects the stories relating to my disability, class, family, activism and popular culture, through large sculptures, augmented and virtual reality, along with digital painting.
I use both digital media and traditional media to create art, which is brightly coloured and psychedelic, employing a palette inspired by the childhood comic books I read in the 1970s, along with tv shows and seaside holidays, where I saw hand painted arcade machines and children’s rides. I use humour to tell sometimes serious and challenging stories.
In 2020 I was awarded the prestigious Adam Reynolds Award by SHAPE Arts. I have exhibited around the world, including the 2024 Venice Biennale and at Wellcome Collection. In 2025 my exhibition at Ferens Gallery Hull ‘Are we there Yet?’ was awarded best exhibition in 2025, at the Museum & Heritage Awards in London.
