Lu Williams

Acquisition Ongoing: Carbon Age Souvenirs by Lu Williams will be the next installation in our café from 29 May – 29 August. Using posters and zine templates, Lu invites you to contribute to an evolving installation imagining what the world might look like hundreds of years from now. Join us for the opening celebration on Friday 29 May from 6–8pm. You can make magnet relics, add to the artwork and get a temporary tattoo! Free to drop in. Lu (@LuWilliamsdotcom ) is an artist working across sculpture, print, zines and socially engaged projects. Their practice explores social history, labour and accessibility through the lens of queerness, neurodivergence and working-class experience. Commissioned by @ArcadeCampfa in partnership with Chapter. ** Acquisition Ongoing: Carbon Age Souvenirs gan Lu Williams fydd y gosodwaith nesaf yn ein caffi o 29 Mai i 29 Awst. Gan ddefnyddio templedi cylchgronau a phosteri, mae Lu yn eich gwahodd i gyfrannu at osodwaith esblygol sy’n dychmygu sut olwg allai fod ar y byd mewn cannoedd o flynyddoedd. Ymunwch â ni yn y dathliad agoriadol nos Wener 29 Mai 6–8pm. Gallwch greu creiriau magnet, ychwanegu at y gwaith celf, a chael tatŵ dros dro! Galwch heibio am ddim. Artist sy’n gweithio ar draws cerflunwaith, print, cylchgronau a phrosiectau cymdeithasol yw Lu Williams. Mae eu harfer yn archwilio hanes cymdeithasol, llafur, a hygyrchedd drwy lens cwiardod, niwroamrywiaeth, a phrofiad dosbarth gweithiol. Comisiynwyd gan Arcade Campfa mewn partneriaeth â Chapter.

🌟 We are delighted to present the work of new PSSA Member Lu Williams Lu Williams (b. 1993, Essex, UK) is a multidisciplinary artist who produces artworks, events, and publications through research, collecting, and collaboration. Their practice explores paraphernalia and cultural offcuts, elevating what is ignored or cast aside to examine social history, access, and labour. Working through the lenses of queerness, neurodivergence, and working-class identity, Williams’ work celebrates the overlooked and challenges hierarchies of value. Trained in sculpture at Central Saint Martins and The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, they developed a deep interest in the material histories of objects and reproduction. After graduating, the economic realities of being a working-class artist prompted a shift toward more immediate and accessible forms. Multiples like zines and souvenirs became central to their practice, offering a fast, democratic, and affordable way to create and distribute art beyond traditional institutions, often using these unmonumental art forms to expand conventional ideas of public art. Since 2015, Williams has been the founder and director of Grrrl Zine Fair CIC, a platform for self-publishing and DIY feminist culture, and the Grrrl Zine Library in 2017, home to over 1,500 queer feminist zines at their studios, The Old Waterworks in Southend. Through Grrrl Zine Fair Williams has worked with Tate, British Council, V&A Museum, Mead Gallery, BFI and Times Art Museum, Beijing,- and delivered Arts Council England-funded artist residencies and zine festivals. Images Souvenirs & Suburbia, public sculpture, 2026 This commission by Focal Point Gallery has been generously funded by Creative Estuary and Art Fund, with support from Southend-on-Sea City Council. Souvenirs & Suburbia, Crooked House and Fairy Castles, 2025, resin, pigment,  wood, MDF Best in Show, pewter sculpture, 2025 Magnet Painting, 2022 Magnetic whiteboard, resin sculptures, thermal paper print, magnets, plasticine Unsolicited , 2022 Recycled spam mail paper, letterbox duster. 📷 Souvenirs & Suburbia, @anna.lukala 📷 Lu Williams, portrait Eliza Hatch #luwilliams #pssamember

A big thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday for the launch of 'Souvenirs & Suburbia', Lu Williams's (@luwilliamsdotcom ) major new public artwork for Southend-on-Sea, located on the outside of the Victoria Shopping Centre. 'Souvenirs & Suburbia' takes the form of a large-scale fridge magnet and postcard, referencing the tourist attractions, cultural icons, landscapes, and visual histories of the local area, celebrating Southend-on-Sea as a home, holiday destination and commuter hub. The work has been shaped by public contributions gathered through an open call, school submissions, and community group workshops carried out by Williams and Focal Point Gallery. The commission has been generously funded by Creative Estuary (@creativeestuary ), Southend-on-Sea City Council (@southendcityc ) and Art Fund (@artfund ) 📷 Photo: Amber Merry (@amberr.merry )

ive been leaning into feral making mode and lots and lots of soul nourishing studio time and brain nourishing research ahead of my show launching at @chapterartscentre with @arcadecampfa on 29th May! it’s called Acquisition Ongoing and is a bit sci fi, a bit about mental autistic collecting, a bit about future relics (and future ruins???) and what remains in a vortex of ai slop and mass production of tat.

toot toot come to our Art Car Boot!! I’m living my dream of running off to join the circus, running a Hook A Duck stall, come play and win weird shit from my studio 🐤 @theoldwaterworks 🚗 ! Join us at The Old Waterworks, North Road, Westcliff, SS0 7AB on 🗓️ Sunday 10 May 🕰️ 12-8pm 🚙 Art Car Boot 🥾 12-5pm 🎤 Karaoke & Cocktails 🍸 4.30 - 8pm Lazy Sunday art boot fair selling: 🎨 art supplies 👖clothes 🌱 seedlings 🖼️ original artworks 🔥bbq 🪀games 🧱 bric-a-brac 🕵🏻‍♀️ mystery things we’ve horded for years 👀 📕 books 🖨️ riso goodies & 💫more💫 Grab coffee from @lazysloth_coffee ☕️ Have an afternoon browse and pick up some truly ✨unique✨ bits and bobs, play some games, chat with us artists, then hang out with @emerrrhhhh and @paigeockendon for Karaoke, with cocktails by @fernworsleyart and sing in the ruins as part of our collab with @theotherma and @plutopress .

gorgeous (first!) time Rotterdam with @creativeestuary as a representative of the advisory board and as an artist working along the Thames. so many parallels within the landscape and learnt a lot about ways in which the city shapes culture around its residents, and does its best to encourage creatives and provide them with resources, as opposed to barriers we often face here. huge thank you to the Creative Estuary team for the invite and planning and big thank you’s and hugs to new friends at @cultuurconcreet who were such generous an thoughtful hosts! lots of mulching to do and collaborations in the works 🫶💖

Next weekend! Join me @nicola_field_art + @fzeeshanchoudhury for a talk on neurodiversity + how art can shape, reveal and validate neurodivergent experiences. ✨ 📆Saturday 11 April 2026, ⏰14:00 – 15:00 📍Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE Reading Room on level 2 Full details on Wellcome Collection website + book your free ticket on Eventbrite. F. Zeeshan Choudhury is a facilitator who uses creativity to foster radical wellbeing. Her research and practice finds meaningful ways for people to question injustice and imagine new futures. She is an advocate for hyper-local community engagement, and runs community groups in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, including the Writer’s Circle at The Common Press in Shoreditch, and Writing to Uncover The Self at St. Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green. Nicola Field is a writer, researcher, artist, socialist activist and AuDHD autotheorist. Her creative, political and arts writing has been widely published across left-wing, LGBTQ+ and alternative media. Her book ‘Over the Rainbow’ was published by Dog Horn Publishing. She is currently completing a multidisciplinary, practice-led PhD at Kingston University, exploring on the politics and poetics of complex PTSD. If want a break from the activities, you can head to our Chill-Out Room to lie down or relax. There will be low lighting, comfortable seating, cushions, mats, ear defenders, earplugs and sensory toys. This event will have British Sign Language interpretation. Speech-to-text. This event will be live-transcribed. The captions will be displayed on a screen in-venue. This is a relaxed event, which means that if you need to, you are welcome to move around and make noise at any time. This event is wheelchair accessible, which means people in wheelchairs can access the location with relative ease. If you have any queries about accessibility, please email us at [email protected] or call 020 7611 2222. Tix also in bio 😇✨

had to add some scrappiness to the feed. 2026 is a big year for feral unmasking and the pursuit of softness 🪻

Smooshy post because Pol turned 6 recently and they have been the best years of my life ✨🥰 feel so lucky to be alive at the same time as her, a magical little creature who has taught me so much 🐾

only got asked to work for free today 3 times which must be a record low over the last 10 years! if you’d like to support feminist causes I highly recommend buying @grrrlzinefair anthology book or heading to our zine portal which contains 16 commissioned zines for artists / writers / feminists who had brilliant ideas but no one else to back them. very proud of the work I do through Grrrl Zine Fair, but work we can only do when funded (also by our readers!). much love to all the tired divas like me who would be doing this work anyway with our without the holiday x

This Saturday! 7th March! As part of Southend City Day i’ll be hosting an artist talk & Q&A about my recent public sculpture ‘Souvenirs & Suburbia’ at @focalpointgallery 🌴 Joined by writer Ellen Mara De Wachter we’ll go behind the scenes on the process, the concept and answer any curious questions about the work. Ellen Mara De Wachter is a writer and coach based in London. She coaches individuals and groups and specialises in working with artists, writers and creative professionals. She is the author of More Than The Eyes: Art, Food and the Senses (Atelier Éditions/D.A.P) and Co-Art: Artists on Creative Collaboration (Phaidon), and her writing appears regularly in leading publications including frieze, Art Monthly, Art Quarterly, and The World of Interiors. To book your ticket, please head to FPGs Eventbrite page (link also in my bio!) Concessions are available. Sat 7 Mar 2026 4pm to 5:30pm Focal Point Gallery The commission has been funded by Creative Estuary and Art Fund, and supported by Southend-on-Sea City Council.