Louise Atkinson

Dr Louise Atkinson is a visual artist, researcher, and facilitator, and is currently based at the University of Leeds as a Visiting Research Fellow. Her practice explores the relationship between art and ethnography, in which she employs a range of visual and digital media and techniques, including collage, zine making, animation, and repeat pattern design. Her work often incorporates processes of co-production and co-curation, creating new narratives with other people in response to existing archives, collections, and histories.

Her previous art and research projects include: If Walls Could Talk (2025), a project to reinterpret the Chinese export wallpaper at Harewood House in collaboration with Chinese-speaking communities in Leeds; No One Is An Island (2023), an augmented reality map produced with refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in response to the Shifting Borders exhibition at Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, University of Leeds; Multilingual Streets (2019-2021), a project using visual art and photography to respond to the visible languages on the street with multilingual pupils in Manchester; and ​​​​​Family Narratives of Being German in Yorkshire (2018), a large format, digital artwork based on documents, objects, and conversations with German expatriates and their descendants living in Yorkshire.

In addition to her contemporary art practice, she is a founder and co-Director of The Highrise Project CIC, an organisation committed to supporting marginalised communities in Leeds through art and digital inclusion.