Joe Richardson

Collaboration is a key part of how Joe’s practice operates. Joe makes work with and alongside others through participatory projects, drawing walks and socially engaged formats that prioritise accessibility and clear language. Whether the outcome is a painting, a public sculpture, a workshop or a shared artefact, the aim is the same: to make work that holds real experience and creates space for connection.

Richardson has experience producing work for public spaces including the following commissions: 

Joe works by producing images with participants through drawing walks and then drawing directly from those artefacts to produce new images in the form of paintings, digital prints and cyanotypes that reflect residents’ lived experience of an area, e.g. his work with Creative People and Places, Hounslow - ‘The Space We Leave’ (below)

This methodology has been developed through repeated use and tested in public facing contexts, for example in his MA research at University of the Arts London (UAL), disseminated at GladHE Nottingham, alongside inclusion in the ELIA Biennial 2025, Oslo and shortlisting for the Marŝato Awards 2025.  Joe is interested in how shared activities such as walking, drawing and talking generate visual material that depict embodied experiences, transitions through headspaces and reflect the shifting landscapes the images are produced in and how they can be later communicated in public spaces.

A key example is his project with Creative People and Places,Hounslow. Joe led drawing walks with local residents and used their sketches and conversations as the basis for a new digital drawing series, ‘The Space We Leave’. The title derived directly from a description offered by one of the participants when reflecting on their drawing. They spoke of using the Japanese concept of ‘ma’ in their response to Brentford Lock, the space which is left. William Rees at CPP Hounslow reflected that:

“The project stood out for its openness and inventiveness, recognising walking as both an artistic process and a form of community engagement…Encouragingly, several participants who first met during Joe’s session have since reconnected at later CPP events and remained engaged with our programme.” The resulting works have been exhibited across Hounslow’s public libraries for the past year and have been seen by thousands of residents.

Other works include, ‘Part and Parcel’ (below) - a collaborative public performance with George Richardson and Miranda Higgins to introduce reflect on the possibility of failure in sporting arenas. After a failed proposal for a billboard stating ‘We Might Lose’ was rejected by then Chairman of Cheltenham Town, Paul Baker, as he reflected that “the emotions and the ruined weekends are part and parcel of football”. This rejection inspired a reflective conversation with the artist’s wife Miranda, who suggested using a football scarf instead and led to the artist and his brother George infiltrating the Jonny-Rocks stadium with a modified football scarf reading ‘There’s Always Next Week’ - a phrase Joe had heard uttered by a disgruntled Cheltenham fan after a defeat on his previous visit to the ground, echoing a regular pattern of his practice of using observed and heard fragments to formulate new works.

Download this resource to complete your own drawing walk.