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John Hall was born in Chesterfield, studied at Leeds and Sheffield and has worked in the arts in a variety of contexts in South Cumbria since 1996.
John produces video, music, soundworks, performances, drawing, magazines, books and records in response to locality, history and communal memory, exhibiting regularly and through performances and broadcast arts festivals in the UK and EU.
Project partners include local schools, MIND, Barrow AFC, Furness Litfest, the Dock Museum, Autism groups, Barrow Archives, Barrow Park and National Heritage, Natural England, Creative Partnerships Cumbria, Radio Cumbria, Theatre Factory and Barrowfull, the Barrow Creative People and Places Project. He was a founding director of what is now FON, co-curating the first four FON festivals of new music and sound art , leading community projects and jointly delivering a live broadcast project devised in Barrow Park from the San Paulo Biennale.
In recent years much of his work has been done under the Artspace banner, as artist / project manager working alongside locally based artists. Artspace was founded to deliver a successful programme of arts activities at Bram Longstaffe Nursery on Barrow Island, and has grown into a flexible and versatile focus for community based work in South Cumbria. The group has delivered 8 projects since 2013 providing opportunities for over 20 artists involving school groups, arts organisations , environmentalists, archaeologists, academia, and folk arts practitioners