My studio is in an old police station.

There are some interesting things in the building, like cells and loops in the walls where people were handcuffed. Although mine is in the old office bit, so it feels more like a school building.

I think studios do have an impact on the sort of work you make. When you get asked to make things in bigger spaces it’s difficult because you’re not in that space when you’re creating it. If you have an abundance of space you can experiment more freely.

I’ve worked with Heart n Soul on and off over the years. I worked on a big project called The Dean Rodney Singers last year. I did sessions with them to develop the idea and articulate it visually.

Southbank Centre approached Heart n Soul to be part of their Festival of Love. They were commissioning different artists to take on the six classical concepts of love: there was self love, love within families, etc.

Heart n Soul were given “ludus” which is the early stages of love: flirtation, private jokes and lighthearted love. They asked the artists that they work with to think of ideas in response to that brief. That was quite an interesting type of love to give a charity that works with people with disabilities. But Heart n Soul put on club nights called Beautiful Octopus Club where a lot of relationships are formed. There’s a lot of flirting, innuendo and cheeky jokes. 

The Tunnel of Love is a multidisciplinary installation in the Southbank Centre’s gallery space. The first thing you’ll hear is a song by a Heart n Soul artist called Pino Frumiento. It’s a cheeky, accordion track – it sounds a bit seaside-y. Just before you go in, there’s an archway over the door covered in a glittery, red curtain. There are very large projections on the wall made up of chat up lines. Things like, “Are you a parking ticket, because you’ve got fine written all over you.” 

Alongside the installation, Heart and Soul ran a season called Allsorts; people came and did different workshops to produce content for the show. One of those ideas became those projections. 

As you enter the tunnel there is a smell of chocolate – created by these electric aromastream machines and the oils used to make soap. The walls are lined with posters of heartthrobs, celebrity crushes and embarrassing people you fancy. We collected those during the Allsorts season. People brought in photographs of their partners and cut pictures out of magazines. We also collected submissions through Twitter and other social media. There are also moving projections – they look like posters, but are projected from behind and move and flirt with you.

Then you walk into a room we’re calling Club Flirt – it’s meant to look like a bar in Magaluf. The Heart and Soul artists will be performing there live every Wednesday. There’s a stage with a massive cut-out heart, with a multi-coloured light feature in it.

There are also peep shows. Behind leopard print curtains you can watch films created by Heart and Soul artists on the topic of relationships and love. And there’s a giant Twister game, like a dancefloor. There’s also a DJ booth where you can play different love songs. There are red phones that ring intermittently and play you little love stories or chat up lines, which were all recorded at Allsorts. And at the back of the room are some cherubs, holding up a ribbon washing line covered in cards. You can confess your love to someone in writing and pin that to the ribbon – literally putting your love on the line.

The arts are an integral part of expression for disabled and non-disabled people. You can value someone with learning difficulties for their creativity, without it being about their life, their issues or how they “cope”.

Tilley, an artist who will be running a space in the installation called The Piggy Powder Room, is incredibly creative. She is able to fit into this sort of project in a way that maybe she couldn’t with mainstream education. She wants to live her life as an artist, to do residencies, to take on commissions. She’s brimming with creative ideas.  

In Focus: Adele’s most used tools

I use Googledocs for everything. It’s the best way to manage that kind of mass communication on a joint project.

I also use Pinterest a lot. When we were first collecting visual inspiration for The Tunnel of Love all the artists could contribute to a Pinterest board - it’s a great media-sharing tool.

Photos by Tim Mitchell.

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