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In partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery, with Freelands Foundation support
Aasha John is the second resident artist for Autograph’s Visible Practice Residency, a three-year project supporting Artist Teachers from global majority backgrounds in arts education. This residency provides an opportunity to create new work within and beyond the school environment, showcasing the value of Artist Teachers and new approaches to practice in teaching.
During her residency, John is developing a body of work that explores craft as a form of resistance. Working with woven photographs as a site for holding memories and stories, she approaches making as a way of preserving culture and connection. Drawing on family archives and histories, she reclaims, remakes and reimagines relationships with the past confronting distance and disconnection and using archival materials as prompts for critical and reflective dialogue.
Lingering in process, John embraces the intricate, repetitive rituals of making as acts of connection and reflection. The continuity of weaving becomes a means of commemorating moments of closeness and making tangible the relationships that stretch across time and place. Her practice meaningfully informs her approach to teaching, encouraging her students to undertake the role of investigator and interpreter in the creation of engaging work.
Aasha John (born 1989, Trinidad) is a London-based visual artist whose practice is rooted in storytelling and community. Exploring her relationship with places, often through collaborative or participatory practices, John invites the viewer to physically engage with her artwork and share her experiences, in turn contributing to the artwork themselves, often through printmaking or bookmarking.
She is interested in the artist's role as investigator and interpreter; probing their subject and conveying meaning in a way that engages the viewer and invites them to consider their relationship with the subject matter.
John studied Graphic Communication at University for the Creative Arts. She is Head of Art/Technology Faculty and Head of Art at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in Islington.
Supporting artist-teachers to develop a new body of work, within and beyond the school environment.
Find out more 
John is developing creative craft workshops to deliver at an after school art club
Showcasing the work produced through the residency
Public programme events connected to John's residency and exhibition
Documenting the project
A resource to support other artist teachers
Banner image: Aasha John © and courtesy the artist.
About the artist: Courtesy Aasha John.
Project image: Courtesy Autograph, London.
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