Following Thompson Hall‘s participation in Syncing Space’s Malaysia and Canada programmes in 2025, Co-Founder and Director, Sarah Pickthall, recognised Thompson’s rapidly developing leadership skills and invited him to co-lead future Sync Short Spaces, helping her deliver the programme.
Syncing Space facilitators, Thompson Hall and Sarah Pickthall, ran the third Syncing Space residency for visual and media artists with learning disabilities and autism this spring, launching the exhibition on World Autism Day on the 2 April 2026. They welcomed four artists to the seven week residency: Eliph Hadert (UK), Lucy (UK), Victoria Bowman (UK), and Hyun-Woo “Pixel” Kim (SK) and explored their studios to see their leadership learning reflections and creative responses.
From Thompson:
“My latest painting is inspired from a drawing that I recently made called ‘Relaxed Afternoon in Seoul’, and also from mentoring Pixel, Victoria, Eliph and Lucy on this Sync shorts programme. I’ve found it interesting listening to their ideas every week. I’m really proud of what the artists have achieved. I think it’s amazing the progress they’ve made in such a short time. It was a real pleasure to mentor the four artists alongside Sarah over the course of six weeks.”
ActionSpace’s Associate Artist, Lisa Brown, works closely with Thompson and shares:
“Thompson’s confidence as an artist grows each cohort. His leadership style is constantly evolving and developing the further he progresses with the programme and changes to suit the needs of the artists. He’s able to manoeuvre styles depending on the new cohort of artists he and Sarah work with. It’s a great programme. It empowers artists to speak and listen to others about their experiences, share their voices and opinions to a wider audience, and share creative ideas within a global community.”
Syncing Spaces is supported by Arts Council England.
Photos and film courtesy of the artist and Sync Leadership.
