About

  It's the coming up with new ideas and collaborating with other like-minded people that I thrive on as well as inspiring projects that explore and interpret social, cultural and heritage themes and invite people to think about the world differently. 

Hidden histories provide a fascination for me and living on the edge of the beautiful Derwent Valley, Derbyshire has inspired me to produce heritage-based, site-specific public participation art projects. They include a script writing and production commission during COVID lockdown, by Beam and Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Sites (UNESCO), as part of the Great Places Scheme, to explore the heritage of Willerlsey Castle. As someone who saw themselves as a visual person, this was an exciting if daunting opportunity and has left me wanting to write more. I chose to look at its role in WWII, when it became a maternity unit for evacuated mothers from the Salvation Army’s Mothers Hospital in the East End of London.  I researched newspaper articles and archives, interviewed people born there and a surviving midwife, turning my findings into a script for a short play with filmed back projections, called The London Mothers. It was produced and filmed in partnership with Derby University at Derby Theatre and directed by myself. The film and research findings can be found on the Derwent Valley Mills website.

I am delighted to say that The London Mothers has in the past year been produced by Fanciful Flock Theatre, a new company of recent acting graduates, the artist director being my youngest daughter, Gina Luker-Edwards. I have redesigned the set and extended the script and so far it’s performed to full houses and great reviews in two London festivals with another run at The Space Theatre, in London and this years Wirksworth Arts Festival, where the play is set.

Following my successful application to Arts Council England and National Lottery Funding for an R & D project, in 2022, I have also been able to collaborate with local artist Lise Bennett, on a site-specific heritage project called  Ambergate Wireworks - The Part They Played (a co-production with Derby Museum of Making). We explored the impact Richard Johnson and Nephew Ltd wireworks had on the world and the Ambergate community in the Derwent Valley. The project aimed to improve community cohesion, through a series of wire sculpting engagement sessions. Recordings of memories of ex-workers and families were edited into a film and soundscape, forming part of an immersive wire sculptural installation depicting events that used the wire that was manufactured there. I have since exhibited my wire sculptures with the soundscape as a solo artist.

I originally studied Fine Art Sculpture (BA Hons Degree) at Manchester and it’s a love of movement, shape and line that often feeds into my approach to design.  I am a long-term collaborator with Keisha Grant, Artistic Director of Birmingham based, African/Contemporary dance company, Keneish Dance, of which I am an associate as a visual artist/designer.  Working with Keneish Dance allows me not only to explore current social issues such as drug misuse but offers opportunities to research into African culture and gain insights into different belief systems such as African Sanctus, at Birmingham Symphony Hall performing with CBSO and choir.

In the past year, I have designed costumes for Indian Classical Kuchipudi choreographer and dancer, Payal Ramchandani, on two ongoing R & D issue-based projects exploring women’s mental health in India, (in collaboration with South Asian Arts company, Manasamitra) and deforestation and flooding in India.

I also recently designed dance costumes for an exciting new multi-disciplinary digital artwork with Tom Dale Company and Barrett Hodgson of Vent Media for Primal Future, as part of Nottingham Light Night 2025.