ASSUNTA RUOCCO

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Assunta and Lou Art Club

Assunta and Lou’s Art Club is a mobile, intergenerational art project developed by artist Assunta Ruocco in collaboration with her daughter Lou. The project emerged from their ongoing collaborative practice and from Lou’s desire to share the ways they make work together with other children and families.

Centred around a transportable quilted print studio, the Art Club creates open-ended spaces for making, intergenerational collaboration and experimentation in libraries, community centres and art spaces. Children and adults are invited to explore drawing, digital print and collaboration through methods developed within Assunta and Lou’s shared studio practice. Sessions prioritise process, play and mindful attention, allowing participants to work at their own pace and to shape the activity together.

The project reflects Ruocco’s wider research into care, access and artist–parent working conditions, and responds to the limited visibility of collaborative, child-inclusive artistic practice within cultural institutions. Since 2024, Assunta and Lou’s After School Art Club has been delivered through workshops, exhibitions and research activity across the UK, and was supported by Arts Council England through a Developing Your Creative Practice grant in 2025 and a National Lottery Project Grant in 2026.

Art is Ours, Mine and Yours! Bloc Projects, Sheffield, 23 May - 13 June 2026
Installation photographs by Jules Lister. Workshop documentation by Ai Narapol.

Art is Ours, Mine and Yours! brought artist Assunta Ruocco and her daughter Lou's studio into the gallery at Bloc Projects, Sheffield. What began as drawing and making together at home during the 2020 lockdown has grown into a wider art club, bringing children, parents and carers into shared processes of making through drawing, digital print and textiles.

Featuring soft digitally printed textiles, collaborative drawings, workshop materials and works made with other children, parents and carers, the exhibition created an open environment inviting visitors of all ages to participate, spend time with the works, and draw. A floor-based textile piece functioned as an interactive mobile studio; when the artists were not present, it was scattered with watercolour paints, pastels, crayons and paper for visitors to pick up and experiment with, alongside a printer-copier producing further copies and variations to encourage exchange and collaboration.

Over May half term, Assunta and Lou facilitated three workshops at Bloc Projects as part of the exhibition, inviting visitors to inhabit a shared world of drawing within the gallery space. The second of the three sessions was the largest workshop the Art Club has run to date, bringing together a wide range of participants across ages to make, copy and collaborate together.

Supported using public funding by Arts Council England through the National Lottery, with additional support from the University of Lincoln and the JG Graves Charitable Trust.

Making Room for Children and Art, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield
Wednesday 27 May 2026, 12–4pm

Making Room for Children and Art is a free symposium on artist-parent/child collaborations and other strategies for continuing a creative practice alongside caring for children. The symposium forms part of Assunta Ruocco’s ongoing research project of the same name, which has developed from her experience of being a parent, long-term collaboration with her daughter Lou, and her research into the people, spaces and organisations building supportive conditions for artist-parents across the UK and beyond.

The day brought together more than 100 people including many children, among them artists, curators, researchers and art workers, to share, discuss and develop thinking around intergenerational collaboration and the conditions that support artist-parents in cultural institutions, studios and public spaces. It took place during the half-term school holidays in the Arundel and Cadman Rooms at Millennium Gallery Sheffield, and went ahead despite the main gallery having to close unexpectedly due to a major maintenance issue.

The day was designed from the outset to welcome children and families. The Assunta and Lou Art Club quilt and making space and Ellie Barrett's Sculpture Kit were active throughout, with play workers present to support families. Lunch was provided for all attendees. The event was open to artist-parents and carers with and without children.

Invited speakers

Shirley Cameron, artist, Sheffield, on her pioneering collaborative practice with her daughters Lois and Colette from the 1970s onwards.

Jo Harrison, co-founder of the Art Working Parents Alliance, on the Alliance's work building networks, visibility and advocacy for artist-parents across the UK.

Magda Bielesz, artist, on her drawings and performances made in collaboration with her son Maurycy.

Karolina Korupczynska and Chloe Whitehouse, Stryx Gallery, Birmingham, on the Mothership Studio and Residency and what sustained, structurally integrated support for artist-parents looks like in practice within an artist-run space.

Hettie Judah, writer and co-founder of the Art Working Parents Alliance, presented No Room Without Children, exploring the work of artists who practise alongside caring for children with additional needs, including Anna Grevenitis, Trish Morrissey, and Cherry Truluck, who makes work in collaboration with her son Ernest Halpin.

Slide-share session

A slide-share session in which attendees shared one image of their work and responded to the questions: what is your practice, and how do you manage the time between care and art work? Participants were: Ellen Angus, Ellie Andrews, Abi Shapiro, Alexandra Mueller, Christopher Jarratt, Clo Pimlott, Ev Hardaker, Evelyn Albrow, Harriet Plewis, Jenna Pink, Jessica Heywood, Laure Carnet, Linny Venables, Miffy Ryan, Natalie Choi, Sophie Michael, Rachel Ellis, Rebecca Renshaw, Ruth Levene, Sarah Attwood, Sarogini Reddiar, Sian Ellis, Georgina Barney.

Photography by Ai Narapol.

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, with additional support from the University of Lincoln. Delivered in partnership with Bloc Projects, Millennium Gallery Sheffield and the Art Working Parents Alliance. With particular thanks to Sunshine Wong at Bloc Projects, Jo Harrison at the Art Working Parents Alliance, and Jessica Shipton at Millennium Gallery Sheffield for their invaluable support in developing this event and on the day.

Assunta and Lou After School Art Club at Nottingham Central Library, 2025-2026

Since February 2025, Assunta and Lou have facilitated weekly intergenerational art workshops at Nottingham Central Library. Centring on their mobile print studio and quilted workspace, the sessions offer an open, playful environment for children and families to experiment with printmaking, drawing, and collaborative making. Taking place in the newly reopened library building, the workshops emphasised care, access, and visibility—creating a space where families can feel welcomed, seen, and creatively supported. These sessions form part of Assunta Ruocco’s ongoing research into sustainable, child-inclusive art practices.

Making Room for Children and Art at New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 2025
Hosted by CVAN East Midlands, with Jo Harrison and the Art Working Parents Alliance. Photographs by Janhavi Sharma and Nicola Guy

With support from Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) fund, Assunta and Lou delivered a public workshop and conversation at New Art Exchange, Nottingham. The event formed part of Assunta and Lou’s After School Art Club and marked the conclusion of the DYCP project, bringing together artist parents, carers and children through shared making and discussion.

Delivered in partnership with CVAN East Midlands, the session combined a relaxed art club led by Assunta and Lou, supported by artist Chiara Dellerba, with a public conversation featuring Jo Harrison from the Art Working Parents Alliance. Drawing on New Art Exchange’s welcoming, family-oriented context, the event enabled sustained participation and informal exchange, supporting dialogue around care, collaboration and working conditions for artist parents within institutional settings.

The event built on the Better Together session delivered by the Art Working Parents Alliance in 2024 and contributed to Ruocco’s wider research into intergenerational collaboration, artist-parent support structures and feminist approaches to co-creation, developed through Assunta and Lou’s mobile studio practice.

Assunta and Lou Art Club at Primary, Nottingham, 2025
Photographs by Becky Beinart, Assunta Ruocco

With support from Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) fund, Assunta and Lou delivered a summer holiday workshop at Primary, Nottingham. The session formed part of Assunta and Lou’s After School Art Club and built directly on their shared practice of layering drawing, painting and collage over digital prints in an open, child–adult studio setting.
Delivered within Primary’s holiday programme, the workshop benefitted from the organisation’s strong, ongoing relationships with local families, enabling relaxed and sustained participation across different ages. The context also allowed time for in-depth conversation and mentoring with Primary’s Collaborative Programme Lead, Becky Beinart, supporting reflection on facilitation, access and the practical realities of child-inclusive work in a gallery environment.
The session contributed to the continued development of Assunta and Lou’s collaborative methods and to Ruocco’s wider research into accessible, intergenerational approaches to making that can operate within institutional and community settings.

All Kinds of Hands, The Storey, Lancaster, 2025
Curated by Ellie Barrett. Photographs by Assunta Ruocco, Saul Argent, Beki Melrose

All Kinds of Hands was a group exhibition of co-produced sculpture curated by Ellie Barrett at The Storey, Lancaster (2–11 May 2025). Bringing together works by Assunta Ruocco, Beata Podstawa, Sarah Ryder, and Nisha Duggal, the exhibition explored collaborative making practices, particularly those shaped by motherhood, play, and shared authorship. Each artist presented work developed through participatory or intergenerational methods: from Barrett’s Tangles sculptures co-created with young children at local playgroups, to Duggal’s clay forms made in dialogue with Pendle residents, and Podstawa’s textile-based collaborations with her son. Ruocco and her daughter Lou contributed Assunta and Lou’s After School Art Club, a new large textile interactive installation where visitors were invited to make, draw, and copy in a shared studio environment. Foregrounding collective action, material exploration, and accessible forms of sculpture, All Kinds of Hands challenged conventional hierarchies of authorship and display. The exhibition was accompanied by a family-friendly programme and will culminate in a symposium in Morecambe (September 2025).

Read a review of All Kinds of Hands in Corridor8 by Natalie Bradbury here.

Assunta and Lou Art Club at Stryx, Birmingham, 2025
Photographs by Sylwia Ciszewska-Peciak

With support from Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) fund, Assunta Ruocco was able to deliver a workshop at Stryx Gallery in Birmingham in collaboration with her nine-year-old daughter, Lou. As part of their ongoing project Assunta and Lou’s After School Art Club, the workshop provided an opportunity to test new materials, refine their co-facilitation methods, and engage with families and artist-parents in a new setting. This session formed part of Ruocco’s broader research into accessible, intergenerational forms of making, and contributed to the development of future participatory installations and collaborative exhibitions.

Assunta and Lou Art Club, Summer Camp, Eastside Projects, 2024

Assunta Ruocco and her nine-year-old daughter Lou presented Assunta and Lou’s After School Art Club as part of the Summer Camp group exhibition at Eastside Projects, Birmingham. The project was tested for the first time as an interactive installation rather than a live workshop. Visitors were invited to engage with a collaborative quilt featuring digitally copied drawings made by Assunta and Lou, alongside scattered art materials and a playful prompt: to improve and transform the drawings together. While many participants created their own contributions, the installation opened up valuable questions around clarity, authorship, and how to sustain a collaborative drawing practice in the artists’ absence.