ActionSpace supports young people and adults with learning disabilities across London, providing access to creative studios, professional guidance, and the support they need to grow as artists. We ensure learning disabled artists are seen and heard and fully included at the heart of the visual arts world. By creating opportunities, and championing their work, we help artists thrive.
Our Mission is to seek out and unlock talent, create opportunities, and enable learning disabled artists to realise their potential.
Our Vision is to position learning disabled artists at the heart of the visual arts sector, where their inclusion is accepted and it is unremarkable to see a learning-disabled artist in the studio, exhibiting, selling their work, or engaging in any aspect of the visual arts. Their presence and contributions will be integral, ubiquitous, and transformative, alongside all artists.
Our Aim is to achieve significant acceptance for artists with learning disabilities in our society; opening up, challenging and disrupting the UK visual arts sector, providing opportunities for learning disabled artists to develop their skills and capabilities, for their work to be seen and better understood, and for them to gain better access to employment and recognition. We aim to drive and promote the inclusion of learning disabled artists across the visual arts workforce and to support their meaningful involvement in the sector’s future leadership.
Supported Studios
Our three flagship London studios — at Studio Voltaire (South), Cockpit Bloomsbury (Central), and ASC Ealing Road (West) — are vibrant, long-term spaces where learning disabled artists flourish. With regular sessions led by professional facilitators, these studios are creative powerhouses where community, collaboration, and practice are at their heart. We support and enable. We do not teach, collaborate, or co-create. We empower artists to lead their careers and fulfil their ambitions, modest or grand.
Creative Hub
We open doors. From local projects to international platforms, we connect learning disabled artists to the wider visual arts world.
Artist Development Agency
We grow careers. Through exhibitions, residencies, commissions, and partnerships with leading arts institutions, we put learning disabled artists centre stage, nationally and internationally.
Our artists’ successes
We’re in awe of the achievements and ambition of our artists.
Find the current highlights here and sign up for our newsletter for regular updates.
Our impact
Head to our latest Annual Report on the Charity Commission site for a full account of our most recent year of activities.
“I really wanted to say how deeply grateful we are for your incredible offering, support and immense care. O’s experience at ActionSpace is so important in the context she terms: ‘Extra Different – not Disabled!’ How amazing Action Space is – an organisation, people and ethos alike. Big thanks to you and the whole team.”
Artist’s Father
“We completed a 12-week course at the ActionSpace studio in Wembley, which was amazing. There were many non-verbal service users in attendance who are normally very withdrawn and they have been lit up like fireworks in a night sky by ActionSpace’s artist facilitators, who have drawn out of them an engagement in art which we never knew was there.”
Support Worker, Ealing Mencap
“…I re-emphasise that the reasons the show was ground-breaking go beyond the obvious ones with regards to K’s disability, but to the nature of the work that shows what it looks like to enable someone to live out their potential.”
Artistic Assessor, Arts Council England,
“I think that the work you do is hugely inspiring; enabling people to find meaning, passion and happiness in their lives is a great thing which I’m happy to support in any way I can.”
Private Donor
“ActionSpace is a really incredible organisation and the work you do is some of the most forward-thinking I have come across in 25 years of supporting people with learning disabilities.”
Service Manager, Learning Disability Service Provider
“Excellent creative facilities to help bring out the talents and skills of the participants. I pray you continue to get all the funding you need to help all members of society have a place to release their gifts and share them in the local community.”
Artist’s Sister
“We were utterly privileged to work with ActionSpace. The responses we received from our students demonstrated and reassured the therapeutic impact that the arts can have on them. Students of different levels and with various needs got together and engaged in meaningful interaction. Participating in the project has been more than beneficial as it equipped them with all the aforementioned skills whilst transitioning towards adulthood.”
Class Teacher & Creative Development Coordinator, John F Kennedy School, Newham
“The Participatory Art Programme has supported and enabled greater ambition for ActionSpace’s studio artists who lead workshops and events. For family, carers and learning disabled participants, it has challenged limiting perceptions of their capabilities and increased their social status. The funding enabled much more experimentation and ensured that the support needed around the artists for new thinking to develop was put in place.”
Elizabeth Lynch MBE, The Participatory Art Programme Evaluator
Discover how our studios work in practice
New to ActionSpace? Our five-part film series is the perfect place to start.
Commissioned alongside ActionSpace artist Nnena Kalu’s 2025 solo exhibition Creations of Care, this series provides a rare behind-the-scenes look into the world of artists with learning disabilities. Filmed at ActionSpace’s supported studio at Studio Voltaire, the films highlight how care, collaboration, and accessibility shape contemporary art practice, and how institutions and audiences can meaningfully engage with artists with learning disabilities.
– Explore our Artist’s artwork
– Find out about our current exhibitions
Images:
Nnena Kalu, Studio Voltaire elsewhere, 2020. Credit: Francis Ware.
ActionSpace studio at Studio Voltaire. Credit: FRENCH+TYE.
Andrew Omoding, It’s my work, come see, come see, Camden Art Centre, 2019. Credit: Hydar Dewachi.
Ian Wornast, Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2021. Photo courtesy of the artist and ActionSpace.
Sharon Adokorach, East London Printmakers workshop, 2021. Photo courtesy of the artist and ActionSpace.
