Space to Grow for Swansea Bay University Health Board

Cwmgors 2026

I was commissioned by the Arts & Heritage Team at Swansea Bay University Health Board to run a series of creative workshops at Hwb Y Gors in Cwmgors, Neath Port Talbot working with a local primary school as part of Space to Grow; funded by the Child Poverty Innovation and Supporting Communities Grant from the Welsh Government 2025-2026.

The aim of the programme is to improve access to social prescribing activities, support new skills and introduce new perspectives through creativity.

I focused on the theme GOFAL (Welsh for care) which the school were already exploring that term. It felt like the perfect starting point for thinking about how we care for our bodies and minds through making and creativity.

Inspired by Hervé Tullet, I devised weekly sessions using drawing and painting to encourage free expression and experimentation. Each session started with a squiggle drawing, using simple doodles on paper that could become anything. I encouraged the children to get out of their comfort zones, to be free, to make marks without worrying about the outcome. No right or wrong, just process.

Every session finished the same way with a big floor painting. We drew around each other's bodies and filled them in with colour, feeling and movement. The results were huge, fun, chaotic abstract works that the children made together. The outcome was brilliant every time!

For many of the children who don’t usually make art outside a classroom, it was a bit challenging but I am sure that for most of them it was valuable, a chance to be creative, be in the moment and feel calm.