DASH

01/05/2026

We're welcoming lots of new faces to the DASH family this month. Find out who's who in the DASH Newsletter for May 2026 - out now! https://mailchi.mp/de860f83edbd/dash-newsletter-may2026

14/04/2026

We are excited to announce that Anne Forgan has joined DASH, working within the CVAN West Midlands team as Project Manager for Creative Workspaces: A Research Project & Action-led Report for Birmingham.

Anne is a producer, project manager and artist based in Coventry. She has over thirty years experience of devising and producing collaborative projects and events across arts, craft, heritage and technology sectors.

Anne’s work has had a consistent commitment to place and has frequently involved working with artists and communities to explore and celebrate aspects of a location. She has worked in sites as varied as a former slaughterhouse, an Ikea showroom, a cemetery and a medieval weavers house. She has been involved in organising a mass tree climbing event, a banquet in a disused industrial unit, an exhibition in a train station and a performance on canoes on Coventry canal. Working in unconventional spaces has given Anne a gritty determination to find ways to make good things happen and the ability to negotiate and make friends with unconvinced officials.

Creative Workspaces: A Research Project & Action-led Report for Birmingham is an 18-month research project responding to a growing and urgent challenge across the city: the shortage and increasing fragility of affordable, accessible creative workspace for visual artists and makers.

The project is supported by Arts Council England using public funding from the National Lottery, with additional support from Birmingham City Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority.

To find out more visit the website: www.cvanwestmidlands.co.uk

18/03/2026

It’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week this week (16-22 March), though it’s something we celebrate every day here at DASH, and many of our staff and board members identify as having some type of neurodivergence. Together our varied brains and neurologies create a truly unique, inclusive and welcoming organisation.

One of our trustees, Artist Becky Beasley, explores neurological difference in her exhibition A Gentle Man (Part II) (1975-2029) which opened at Derby QUAD on Friday.

This touring show is a pastoral interior landscape with a gallery-sized, pale green, linoleum floor artwork, including a series of inset hand-cut linoleum lakes silhouettes and a décor that transforms the length of the gallery into an environment. Around the lakes, adjustable ‘conversation’ or ‘kissing’ benches - designed by the artist - provide a place to sit. (Artist Roni Horn wrote that rivers are for moving along, where lakes are for sitting beside.)

Beasley’s small ceramic works sit discreetly on a series of ‘lakes’ tables, which mirror the floor designs. Pastel pink linen curtains swirl slowly in circles on rails formed in the shapes of the letters, H, S and P., an acronym for Highly Sensitive Person. Elongated oak picture-shelves, on which groups of existing and new photographic works lean, frame the lengths of the gallery.

The exhibition includes a four-part video portrait of an imaginary figure – a merging of the intersecting lives American novelist and shorty-story writer, Bernard Malamud, and the artist’s father. The work explores milestone leaps of faith in life through its four discreet chapters: work, family, chosen family and dying.

DASH’s Executive Director, Peter Bonnell attended the launch. He described it as ‘lovely, very relaxed, sublime, contemplative, challenging, beautiful; and well attended - the talk had about 30 people packed into the room.'
The show is free to enter and runs until - 2 August 2026 at QUAD, Derby
Opening times: Thursday – Sunday: 12pm – Late

Image 1: The Artist Becky Beasley and Curator Jodi Kwok.
Images 2 – 5: Exhibition images from the show A Gentle Man (Part II) (1975-2029) at QUAD, Derby, taken by Peter Bonnell.

10/03/2026

Over the last two weeks, DASH staff, artist Tanya Raabe-Webber () and curators Ila Copley and Oli McCall have visited the home-studio of Home Based Situated Practice (HBSP) inaugural Artist-in-Residence Grace Currie () who lives in North Shropshire.

Grace has a purpose-built studio located next to her house on what would have been the footprint of a double garage.

Here’s a selection of photos capturing a wonderful couple of studio visits with Grace and her team.
Including the artwork Rock Hand Mountain (image 2).

A newly commissioned film work by Grace will be on display at Compton Verney as part of the Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and Other Visionary Artists exhibition, opening on 28 March.

📷 A carousel of images showing close ups of art works and equipment in Grace’s studio.

27/02/2026

Check out the DASH March Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/bb0604b7f97d/dash-newsletter-mar2025-11044052

17/02/2026

OPINION

Please help with this valuable research.

This anonymous survey is self-led by Amanda Lynch, a visual artist and researcher, based in Somerset, UK. The survey will form a research paper, looking back over the years since the Covid – 19 pandemic.

The survey asks about your interactions, experiences and memories of online events and exhibitions with galleries and museums.

You may want to take some time to consider this before you start the survey.

Find out more and find the link to the survey on the DASH website: https://ow.ly/7r2u50Xj2zy



Image Description: A yellow square, with a line drawn illustration of a loud hailer in black. Below in bold letters reads Digital Impact Survey. share your experience of digital access to galleries and museums since the pandemic

16/02/2026

John Hansard Gallery is delighted to announce Jess Starns as their new Future Curator, as part of the DASH Future Curators Programme.

Jess’ creative process is participatory, collaborative, and follows inclusive practice with a focus on disability, neurodiversity or history. Their practice is multidisciplinary, with materials and approach informed by the theme of the project, usually through archive research. As someone who is neurodivergent, Jess is always looking for new and innovative ways to create art that is accessible.

Alongside six partner organisations – Disability Arts Online, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, MIMA, Wysing Arts Centre, Arts Catalyst and MAC – John Hansard Gallery is elated to be part of this programme, as they strive towards their core mission of making positive contributions to inclusion within the arts sector.

The team at John Hansard Gallery look forward to working with Jess on a wide range of projects connected to the gallery’s programme from March 2026.

Learn more about Jess here on John Hansard Gallery's website: https://ow.ly/3veK50YgCb0

Image credit: Photo courtesy Michael Akuagwu

Image description: Jess Starns covered in colourful paper against the backdrop of a wall covered in both colour and black and white drawings.

29/01/2026

DASH Newsletter February 2026 - https://mailchi.mp/df843804b030/dash-newsletter-feb2026
The latest news, events and opportunities. Don't miss the online Homegrown Symposium on 5th Feb - book now!

Image 1: Wintering by Carrie Slawinska. Image 2: Corinne in The Severed Wing, courtesy of the artist.

27/01/2026

📣 Homegrown: An Online Symposium on Home-Based Creative Practice
🗓 Thu 5 Feb 2026 | 🕚 11am–4pm | 📍 Online
A day of conversation and shared learning exploring home-based and situated creative practice - reflecting on access, care and sustainability, and how artists and organisations can work better together.
Curated by The Lowry in partnership with Corinne, DASH and Art Riot. Supported by Compton Verney.
🎟️ Book now:

Join us for a day exploring the possibilities and challenges of home-based and situated creative practice.

22/01/2026

OPEN CALL:

DASH and Wysing Arts Centre seek to jointly appoint a home-based, disabled Associate Curator

Application Deadline: 26 January 2026
Location: Home-based (UK), with an optional residency opportunity at Wysing Arts Centre
Fixed-term, 12 months from Spring 2026
Fee: £15,000

This position is part of DASH’s Future Curators Programme (FCP) and is for a Disabled, Deaf or Neurodivergent curator who works primarily from home or for whom home-based working is essential. This role is intentionally structured to be home-based, flexible, and responsive — centring the curator’s access needs, pace and working style. Access support will be provided as required (e.g. access riders, digital assistance, mentoring, and flexible scheduling).

The curator will co-develop and curate shared ways of working in digital/ online spaces for DASH and Wysing Arts Centre, shaping it as a collaborative, accessible environment for artistic experimentation, storytelling, and international exchange.

The Recruitment Pack is Screen Reader/ Read Aloud enabled, and BSL interpreted. There is also an Easier to Read version available. See the link to our website in the bio.

The FCP is designed and managed by DASH. It brings together seven partners from across the UK to deliver opportunities in different regions, for emerging disabled curators to work within visual arts organisations. The FCP is generously funded by Arts Council England, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and the Art Fund.








Image 1: The text 'We Are Recruiting: Future Curators Programme' appears in white lettering on a mid-blue portrait-orientated rectangular background. The blue is bolder towards the bottom and becomes gradually paler towards the top. Feint white outlines of the counties covered by the wider programme cross over the background. The DASH and Wysing logos appear in white along the bottom of the rectangle.

Image 2: Rika Nakashima, ‘When the Hive is Burning’, June 2025, Wysing Arts Centre. Photo: Lucy Rose Shaftain-Fenner. A group of people sitting on mats in a circle on grass near a rustic two-story wooden building under a cloudy sky.