In May 2025, ActionSpace artist Linda Bell led a series of workshops as part of the West London Inclusive Arts Festival (WILAF), hosted at the Royal Albert Hall. The festival, which ran from Tuesday 13 to Thursday 15 May, is a landmark celebration of inclusive arts practice, partnering with seven SEND schools in West London. The festival places inclusion and accessibility at its core, offering young people meaningful, high-quality cultural experiences.
This year’s theme, We Are Explorers, invited students to imagine and express their own creative journeys through performance and visual art. Alongside two relaxed performances, students took part in participatory sculpture workshops with ActionSpace artist Linda Bell, whose practice is rooted in tactile interaction, movement, and improvisation.
Linda Bell’s sculptural workshops centred around transformation through touch and repetition. Working with materials such as foil, fabric, and paper, students were encouraged to explore how these everyday objects could be reshaped into expressive, large-scale forms. The process-focused workshop events highlighted the sensory qualities of each material, with Linda guiding participants through a hands-on, collaborative experience.
Linda’s work often blurs the boundaries between sculpture and performance, and this spirit of experimentation was fully embraced in the workshop. Students engaged physically with the materials, discovering how sculpture could extend beyond static form into motion and interaction, mirroring Linda’s own approach to making.
Supported by The John Lyon’s Charity.
Images: Linda Bell workshop for WLIAF 2025. Image courtesy of the artist and ActionSpace.
