Linda Bell joined ActionSpace in 1999. She has high support needs; she is autistic, deaf and non-verbal, with a limited sign language vocabulary. Before joining ActionSpace, her only experience of making art was in group projects, creating mosaic and textile group artworks under close direction, with little room for her creative talents to flourish.

ActionSpace has provided Linda with a shared supported studio, access support, creative facilitation and career management. Working within a nurturing environment has allowed Linda to develop her unique creative voice and to have full control over her art practice. She also benefits from the social interaction with her studio colleagues and the acknowledgement she receives for the exhibitions and events she is part of.

Linda’s practice now includes sculpture, performance, live art and immersive film. Her need to share her process has led to her co-designing and co-leading participatory workshops for learning disabled groups, including Wandsworth’s One Trust, A New Direction’s annual I Am Festival for SEN schools and a three-year British Museum project with Leonard Cheshire Charity, which included working with service users at Randall Close Resource Centre in Wandsworth.

In 2022, Linda was part of a group of high-profile contemporary artists commissioned by Hospital Rooms to create permanent artworks for Springfield University Hospital in Tooting. Linda led a series of workshops with Wandsworth’s Share Community. A film of the workshops was produced as a digital artwork, installed in the hospital alongside mounted photographs of Linda and the workshop participants.