Laura Copsey

I am an experimental illustrator, educator and practice-based researcher from East Anglia. My work is interdisciplinary and collaborative, informed by my background as a therapist and musician. I have taught visual communication in a range of higher education and community contexts over the past 7 years and I have extensive work experience working with adults with learning disability and mental health difficulties.

My creative work is informed by heritage, archaeology and geo-poetics, often focused on marginalised histories or speculative futures. I organise live experiences, expeditions, socially engaged projects and walkshops where the audience may become collaborators. I am interested in experimental and non-hierarchical methods of mutual learning and creativity. 

I make narrative artefacts which use deliberate material to evoke a sense of place and story. This may include learning historic craft methods, use of ecological cameraless photography, collage, sound and moving image, to activate places, histories, or regional museum collections. 

My ongoing research interests relate to the gap between what's real and imagined (para-fiction) and how direct engagement or intervention with site can have narrative or therapeutic potential.

In was illustrator in residence at the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, alongside collaborator, designer Philip Crewe. Together we researched the marginalised heritage of the New River in London exhibited during London Design Week and Open House Festival 2022. I play in the band Firestations on Lost Map Records.

• MA Experimental Communciation (RCA)
• BSc Occupational Therapy (UEA)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)