About
Laurel Gallagher is a visual artist and process-based researcher whose work spans painting, textiles, video, performance, and participatory practice.
Her practice is underpinned by a consistent methodology — cyclical, reflective, embodied — applied with the same rigour across studio work, public commission, participatory practice, and academic collaboration.
She has co-authored and presented research with academic partners across ecology, psychology, and education. Her participatory work has been supported by Arts Council England, Reaching Communities, and AHRC-funded interdisciplinary research.
From 2018 to 2025, she co-founded and co-directed Urban Wilderness CIC, a community interest company working at the intersection of arts, ecology, and place in Stoke-on-Trent. The organisation developed large-scale participatory projects — including the Pig Walk — and contributed to Longton’s cultural regeneration and its bid for Town of Culture designation. Within this, Laurel initiated Art Club, a collaborative action research programme with neurodivergent young people through which a Pedagogy of Transformation framework was developed, and In the Balance, an artist-led peer exchange building community of practice around art, environment, and place.
Urban Wilderness CIC archive 2018–2025 →
Collaborative Research & Publications
Morgan, C. (ed.) (2022). Creative Decommissioning. AHRC Decommissioning the Twentieth Century Project. Keele University, University of Lincoln, University of Hertfordshire, Northumbria University. Urban Wilderness contribution: The Museum of Possibilities, Chatterley Whitfield, 2021–2022.
Hallam, J., Gallagher, L. and Owen, K. (2021). The secret language of flowers. Environmental Education Research.
Hallam, J., Gallagher, L. and Harvey, C. (2021). ‘I don’t wanna go. I’m staying. This is my home now.’ Urban Forestry and Urban Greening.
Hallam, J., Gallagher, L. and Harvey, C. (2019). ‘We’ve been exploring and adventuring.’ The Humanistic Psychologist.
Anderson, B. and Gallagher, L. (2018). Feral Futures: children re-imagine derelict urban sites. Interdisciplinary research project in partnership with Keele University coCREATE, exhibited as part of Being Human Festival 2018, Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent. Featured on BBC Radio 3, The Essay.
Commissions, Residencies & Projects
2024–2025 — AA2A Artist Residency, University of Staffordshire 2023 — Destination Dartmoor, Mayes Creative 2022 — Wild Swimming R&D, Anglesey 2017 — Follow the Birds art trail, Appetite’s The Big Feast, Stoke-on-Trent 2017 — Follow the Birds art trail, Festival Stoke Art Street, Stoke-on-Trent 2016 — Lost Garden Festival installation and nature art workshops, Stoke-on-Trent 2016 — Arts Council Project Fund, Feral Spaces of Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent
Teaching Experience
2021–2025 — Programme Director, Art Club, Urban Wilderness CIC, Stoke-on-Trent 2010–2011 — Art Teacher and Technician, Weobley High School, Herefordshire 2004–2010 — Art Teacher and Community Art Officer, The Forest School, Wokingham 2004–2005 — Artist in Residence, The Forest School, Wokingham
Education
2010 — MDip Art and Design Education, UCL Institute of Education. Studio Practice as Research module established a personal pedagogy of transformation through material practice. 2004 — PGCE Art & Design Education, Oxford Brookes University 2000 — BA (Hons) Fine Art, Nottingham Trent University 1997 — Foundation Diploma, Hereford College of Art & Design
FERAL STATE 