Joshua Bilton is a visual artist working across socially engaged and community-focused practice.
His work explores the relationship between people, ecology and wellbeing, often using workshops as a way to bring communities together through shared creative processes.
This May half-term, Joshua is leading Flourish workshops at Barham Park Community Studio, inviting families to explore nest-building, nature and creativity through walking, foraging and making together.
In this Q&A, Joshua shares more about his practice, what inspires his work with communities, and his ongoing projects. This interview is part of a series featuring artists from ACAVA’s studio and community network.
Your name
Joshua Bilton
Your art practice in a few words
I’m a visual artist, using workshops to invite different community groups into the process of making. I would describe my work as community-focused and socially engaged, interested in how local ecology can inform approaches to care, recovery and wellbeing.
Where can we find your work?
You can find my work at:
https://www.joshbilton.com/
Tell us a bit about yourself
I’m interested in how my practice can help communities reflect on environmental care and self-care through nature, conservation and animism. My work often takes the form of social sculptures and participatory processes that create a collective space for gathering, quietness and reflection.
Walking has strongly informed my practice during the past two years, as a method of thinking, meditating on ways into the work, noticing, and intuitively collecting organic materials that I find along the way. Local rivers have also become key to my work, exploring questions of accessibility to conservation and ways of bringing this creatively into spaces such as hospitals and schools.
What Flourish programmes have you worked on recently and what did you do?
I have worked on a number of Flourish projects that offer a wonderful opportunity to experiment and respond to the garden spaces. These have included making bird costumes and creating a journey as a migratory bird, building a large bird hide from cardboard and performing in the gardens, creating a river journey using inks and large-scale gestural paintings, and collecting organic materials to make sculptures that transmit a message to the sky.
Most importantly, the workshops offer a space for play, creative expression and non-target-driven learning.
What interests you about being a Flourish facilitator, and/or has it influenced your practice, or your way of thinking about art?
Being a Flourish facilitator has taught me a lot about the importance of protected garden spaces in London and positioning studios next to nature. Both Maxilla in North Kensington and Barham Park in Brent have direct access to outdoor space, offering a protected and sheltered area for children to wander, explore, play, collect organic materials and perform.
Each workshop has been an opportunity to connect art activities to plants, birds and nature, and it has shown me how important this is for both children and parents. I feel that the workshop format is a form of permission to gather collectively, to pause and notice, to breathe, to run around, play and be silly.
In a way, the workshop is completely live, and I am always listening and responding to what the environment needs, and to what will hold the space and energy of the group.
Do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions you’d like us to platform?
I’m having a baby, so a new rhythm and perspective will be shaping my life. I’m really excited by this and the sense of growth it has brought.
I am currently a resident artist at St George’s Hospital until July 2027, working on a project connected to the River Wandle, a chalk stream that rises in West Croydon and flows into the Thames at Wandsworth. This project will deepen my connection with rivers through walking the 12.5-mile trail, and explore how water plants and ecology can inform conversations and workshops on recovery and wellbeing with patients.
I will also be making a collaborative 16mm film with my dad, exploring water dowsing and conversations on health and ageing.
My most recent publication and 16mm video I Felt I Was A Bird can be seen here:
https://www.joshbilton.com/what-matters#/i-felt-i-was-a-bird-publication/
The project was made in collaboration with Arbury Primary School in North Cambridge, Holme Bird Observatory, the River Nar and Kettle’s Yard Gallery.
Joshua’s workshops at Barham Park Community Studio reflect his deep interest in ecology, care and collective making. Through shared exploration of nature, he invites families to slow down, connect and experience creativity as a collaborative and reflective process.
May half-term family art in Wembley
Join free family art workshops in Wembley this May half term. Explore nature, nest-building and creativity together with artist Josh Bilton at Barham Park Studio.
