Photograph of a colourful sculpture made from various objects, including a bike tyre, hoop and tennis racket, along with coloured tape and other found objects and fabric. The sculpture is in a paved urban area, in front of a van with 'The National Gallery Art Road Trip' on the side. Two people are looking at the sculpture, and other people are to the side and in the background making other work.

Artist-led

Artist-led: GASP!

An ongoing series profiling artist-led initiatives and groups in the South West. This month we are celebrating GASP!

Posted

16/10/25

Can you tell us about GASP!, who you are and what do you do?

We are Gloucestershire Arts & Social Project CIC, but that's a mouthful, so we are GASP! Or GAS Projects! We are excited about eye-catching, contemporary visual arts that tackle social or place-based issues in a playful and provocative manner. GASP! partners with national and local organisations, such as The National Gallery and The National Waterways Museum to co-create “WOW-factor” projects in Gloucester. Our groups are at the heart of our organisation, co-designing and inspiring projects with us. We develop talent pathways and creative projects that respond to the needs of the people and communities we work with. Working in a dynamic and responsive way, we listen to what's missing or what is needed socially and culturally, and co-design contemporary, creative ideas to help address these needs in Gloucester.

CREDIT

A photo portrait of two white women sitting on the floor next to each other. The person one the left is wearing colourful leggings and a dark top, the person on the right is wearing purple leggings and a dark top. They are leaning against each other and smiling. The photo is taken inside, the room has a wooden floor, brick walls and two dark orange pillars either side of the image. On the wall there are a number of colourful circular art works, with further painted wooden rectangular artworks leaning against the wall to the right.

CREDIT

Can you tell us why you set up GASP! and why it is important in the context that you are working in?

GASP! was set up in 2022 by artists Soozy Roberts and Hannah Thomson to create the kinds of opportunities that we wanted to take part in, in our local city. Since working in Gloucester as freelance artists from 2018, we could see the need for more infrastructure and support in the visual arts. We both took part in the Catalyst Leadership programme, run by Create Gloucestershire and Nowhere, which helped us to drive ambition and change in ourselves, and develop our work in Gloucester. Being artists meant that we could feel and see what opportunities were missing and, in a way, we set up as an organisation to give and receive the support that we felt that we had needed as freelance artists.

We offer mentoring support for young creatives and graduates, which we would have loved to have received in our 20s. It’s a really important time when you first graduate from university and finding your feet in the art world is super challenging. As well as our Young Creatives programme for 18-30 year olds, we nurture and inspire talent in young people aged 11+ in our free art clubs. Retaining creative young people in Gloucester is really important to developing the creative eco-system of Gloucester, and to do this we need to create sustainable pathways into the arts. GASP! is very much a socially-engaged arts organisation, growing out of our own co-creative and collaborative art practices.

A photograph of an exhibition installation. There is a green denim jacket decorated with buttons, sequins and colourful tassels handing in the foreground, with other jackets hanging behind and to right. Behind that are two white plinths with various objects including painted buckets and casks. Fabric works are hung on the wall to the right, and colourful circular works are hung on the wall at the back. The room has low light, it has a wooden floor and ceiling, and a brick wall a the far end.

CREDIT

Can you describe your context - what sort of space you run out of, where you run your project from, and how you operate and are funded?

We use existing spaces to keep our overheads low wherever we can, such as The Ewe Space in Matson, the libraries and The National Waterways Museum. We often work in empty shops, and partner with local organisations to make contemporary arts accessible in Gloucester, a city without a dedicated, large public art gallery. Our afterschool art clubs, which we hold in local libraries, inform our public art programme, joining the dots to create a cohesive visual arts offer in the city. We are really lucky that local spaces have supported us in-kind and that we have been able to use this as match funding for our grant funding bids.

We are predominantly Arts Council-funded through National Lottery Project Grants, alongside contributions from local funders, including Gloucester City Council, Gloucestershire Gateway Trust, Gloucester Culture Trust and Culture Matson, to name a few. For our youth provision, we are supported by the county council-funded Youth Support Team and Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF). Funding is always a juggling act, trying to secure local match funding to support our Arts Council bids and to meet the needs of multiple funders and our communities.

A photograph of an artwork presented outside in a paved urban space on a sunny day. The work consists of a large temporary structure, with two pink fabric wrapped columns on either side at the front. The word GAWP! is made out of large cut out letters fixed between the columns, and there is a fabric curtain under that is parted in the middle. Between the curtain, two women are standing with their arms round each other. They are smiling, and both wearing dark red tabards.

CREDIT

Can you tell us about what you are currently working on and if you have any projects coming up you’d like to share with our network?

We are just embarking on a super exciting project called Meanwhile in Gloucester, which is a 14-month Arts Council and locally funded project that will animate meanwhile spaces in Gloucester, whilst creating opportunities for communities to co-create with local and national artists, to turn the city into a “public art gallery”.

Occupying empty shops and spaces across the city, and responding to themes of place, heritage, working class artists and marginalised and youth voices, the project culminates in a symposium to explore learning and outcomes, with University of Gloucestershire and Gloucester Culture Trust. We’ve got some really exciting partners working alongside us, including Gloucester City Council and Colliers, who are supporting us with free office space in Eastgate Shopping Centre to enable us to be artists in residence, so look out for updates on what’s coming up soon!