Alison Ballard is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice investigates changing notions of presence, attention, and lived experience within a technologically mediated world. Working across moving image, installation, sound, text, and live performance, Ballard’s work asks what it means to experience something in real time in an age defined by asynchronous communication, digital mediation, and constant distraction.
Central to Ballard’s practice is an ongoing interest in how technology reshapes subjectivity, memory, and the body. While works such as Wasted Labour (winner of the Main Prize at the Nottingham Castle Open, 2016) examines systems designed to optimize productivity and physical labour of the body, Narrating the Barbican and The Narrator is Present explore visibility and surveillance in public spaces, social politics, and the ways rhetoric and storytelling can be manipulated by others.
Her practice is informed by her interest in how time is measured, perceived, and embodied, creating works that foreground duration, waiting, and the act of paying attention. An Hour reveals how systems designed to measure and record time conflict with human rhythms and emotional states. Exploring time as both a measured system and a subjective human experience, Ballard creates participatory and durational works that explore the tension between clock time and lived time; inviting audiences to become conscious of duration, waiting, and the subtle shifts that occur when time is deliberately inhabited rather than consumed.
Collaboration is central to her methodology; frequently working with performers and audiences as active contributors rather than passive viewers, emphasising shared authorship and collective presence. Ballard treats participation as a method rather than a supplement. Viewers are frequently asked to engage actively - by listening, waiting, counting, or simply remaining present. These gestures resist spectacle and productivity, instead valuing attentiveness, vulnerability, and shared experience as artistic materials in their own right.
Alongside her artistic practice, Ballard has an extensive background in education as a lecturer in Fine Art and Moving Image at institutions including Goldsmiths, Nottingham Trent University, and London Metropolitan University, as well as independent coaching. This pedagogical engagement informs her work’s ethical orientation and emphasis on dialogue, care, and shared experience. She adopts an accessible approach that values process, care, and sustained engagement with diverse audiences, positioning art not as an object to be consumed, but as a shared space for reflection, presence, and critical awareness.
C.V.
Selected Awards & Commissions
2022 Time, Space, Money Bursary, a-n
2020 Emergency Response Fund, Arts Council England
2016 National Lottery Project Grant, Arts Council England
2015 Main Prize, Nottingham Castle Open, Nottingham, UK
Solo Exhibitions & Performances:
2020 ‘An Hour’, IAS / Radar, Loughborough, UK
2017 'Offline Is The New Luxury', Furtherfield Gallery, London, UK
2016 'Everyday Fiction', NetPark, Metal, Southend-On-Sea, UK
2013 'Narrating the Barbican', Barbican, London, UK
2009 'Pod', Shunt, London, UK
2006 'In My Good Ear', PreSet / Dance4, Nottingham, UK
2005 'All Ears', PreSet / Dance4, Nottingham, UK
Selected Collaborations
2020 An Hour, Radar, Loughborough, UK (with Dr Martin Lewis and participants)
2017 The Narrator is Present, Furtherfield, London UK (with actors and audiences)
2016 Colony, touring (with Dr Mike Blow and Hogarth Productions)
2015 Wasted Labour, (with Dr Martin Lewis)
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2025 Perennial, Haarlem Artspace, Wirksworth, Derbyshire, UK
2023 Wirksworth Festival, Wirksworth, Derbyshire, UK
2018 Eyecatcher III, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK
2017 Live Friday, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
2016 Midpointness, AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, UK
2016 Wonderlab: Statoil Gallery, Science Museum, London, UK
2016 Estuary Festival, Metal, Southend-On-Sea, Essex, UK
2016 Digital Artist Residency, online at www.digitalartistresidency.org
2016 Audiograft, Oxford, UK
2016 NetPark, Metal, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, UK
2015 Nottingham Castle Open, Nottingham, UK (WINNER: Main Prize)
2015 I'M Ten, IMT Gallery, London, UK
2015 Plymouth Art Weekender, Plymouth, UK
2015 ArtVideoKoeln, German-Japanese Centre, Cologne, DE
2014 Videorover Archive, NURTUREart, New York, USA
2014 HTMlles 11| ZÉRO FUTUR{E} Feminist Festival of Media Arts + Digital Culture, Montreal, CA
2014 Barbican Weekender: We Create, Barbican, London, UK
2014 Videorover: Season 7, Pratt's DDA Gallery, New York, USA
2014 Videorover: Season 7. NURTUREart / Union Docs, New York, USA
2013 The Festival for Different and Experimental Cinema, Paris, FR
2013 Supernormal, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, UK
2013 Hilltown New Music Festival, Hilltown House, Hilltown, Ireland
2013 Lab Film Festival, Mother Studios, London, UK
2013 Sheffield Fringe Festival, Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
2013 Ende Tymes: Novo Apocalypso, Silent Barn, New York, UK
2012 Audible Obervatories, SOMArts Cultural Centre, San Francisco, USA
2010 Sonic Jukebox, SoundFjord, London, UK
2009 Rushes Short Film Festival, Tenderpixel, London, UK
2009 The Pixel Palace, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, UK
2009 BBC Big Screen, Various locations throughout the UK.
2008 flEXiff, Sydney, Australia - Nominated: 'Special flEXiff Award'
2008 Festival of Nations, Ebensee, Austria - Awarded: 'Diplom Award 2008'
2006 Wormhole Saloon I & II, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
2004 You Are Here Festival, Nottingham, UK
2004 Urban Sport, Art Exchange, Nottingham, UK
Selected Residencies:
2019 Summer Lodge, Nottingham Trent University, UK
2018 Studio4 Residency, Chisenhale Studios, London, UK
2016 Digital Artists Residency, online AiR at www.digitalartistresidency.org
2016 Summer Lodge, Nottingham Trent University, UK
2016 Time & Space, Metal, Southend-On-Sea, Essex, UK
2015 NetPark Culture LAB, Metal, Southend-On-Sea, UK
2014 Summer Lodge, Nottingham Trent University, UK
2013 Hack the Barbican, Barbican, London, UK
2008 Cybersonica AV Lab, Cybersonica / The Basement, Brighton, UK
Publications:
2014 'COBRA: A Critical Response 1.3', DVD & Book, COBRA RES, London, UK
2009 'Tenderpix' DVD, Tenderpixel / Tenderproduct, London, UK
Education / Qualifications:
2025 Level 2 Certificate in Understanding Mental Health First Aid and Mental Health Advocacy in the Workplace, Bridgwater and Taunton College, UK
2020 PGCert, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, London Metropolitan University, London, UK
2020 Fellow, Advanced HE (previously HEA), UK
2017 Associate Fellow, HEA (now Advance HE), UK
2012 MA Sound Arts, LCC, University of the Arts, London, UK
2004 BA (Hons) Fine Art, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
2002 Erasmus Study Exchange, Royal Academy of Art, Den Haag, NL
2000 BTEC (Dip) Art & Design Foundation Studies, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK
Lecturing/Coaching:
Since 2024 Artists’ Coach, Independent Artists’ Coaching, Online
Since 2011 Associate Lecturer, BA Fine Art, NTU, Nottingham, UK
2023 Visiting Lecturer, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK
2018 - 2021 Associate Lecturer, BA Fine Art, LMU, London, UK
2017 - 2020 Tutor, TOMA (Alt. Ed Programme), Southend-on-Sea, UK
2019 Visiting Speaker, BA Fine Art, DMU, Leicester, UK
2017 Visiting Lecturer, MA Creative Writing (Digital Writing), University of Westminster, London, UK
2016 Visiting Lecturer, MA Art & Politics, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK