Prepared carefully. Held responsively. Open to more than one way of knowing and participating.
My work has evolved through long-term practice in SEND settings, museums, galleries, orchestras and cross-arts collaborations. It begins with preparation, but preparation is used to create freedom rather than control.
Explore the interactive Field First example · Discuss a project
A simple version
I create a container around an idea, place, artwork, material or theme. I arrive in the room, notice what is actually happening, and work with sound, movement, atmosphere and invitation so that different people can enter in different ways.
Core qualities
- Multiple entry points rather than one correct route
- Participant agency and the right to watch, pause, leave and return
- Attention to processing time, regulation and familiarity
- Sound, movement and material given equal artistic status
- Careful noticing of subtle and invisible forms of participation
- Structure that can bend in response to the room
- Collaboration rather than delivery at people
Field First: beginning with the people and the room
Field First begins before a workshop appears to have begun. I arrive by noticing the room, the people and the quality of attention already present. Through subtle, sometimes almost invisible invitations, I make space for us to slow down and arrive as we are. Nobody needs to change themselves or produce a particular response to belong in the work.
A contribution may be bold, hesitant, unexpected, tiny or difficult to interpret. A passing comment, a gesture, a sound, a silence or a shift in atmosphere can become part of the creative process. I notice what appears, where an invitation lands and what has connection, then weave from there. The work can begin in a felt quality of being together, before language, explanation or a recognisable form has emerged.
Careful preparation gives this openness a container. There is enough form and continuity for people to enter, pause and return, and for expression to unfold into something we can experience together. My role is to hold that shape while responding to what could not have been planned.
Field First values presence over a prescribed performance. I look for the openings that come through release, curiosity and connection. This may initially feel unfamiliar or untidy, especially when a group expects immediate instructions or a finished result. Space is being made, and the facilitation is attentive throughout.
For commissioners, the conditions matter: an agreed purpose, time for arrival, a suitable environment, active staff collaboration and trust in responsive facilitation. These help the work find both freedom and cohesion.
What might Field First look like?
The starting point is the people, the room and what is already happening. The Creative Arc offers a shape for exploring together, while leaving room to pause, return and follow an unexpected contribution.
No one has to change who they are or perform a particular response to belong.
Choose a part of the arc to explore a possible classroom moment.
Pause, return, follow what emerges
Arrive — begin with who is here
We notice the room, its pace and the people in it. Small, gentle invitations allow time to settle, without an immediate demand to join in.
A possible classroom momentA quiet bassoon phrase leaves space for someone to listen from the edge of the group. Looking, moving, resting or making a sound are all ways of being present.
Arise — notice a starting point
A gesture, sound, word or shared interest may offer somewhere to begin. We make room for small and unexpected contributions, rather than deciding in advance which responses count.
A possible classroom momentSomeone taps twice on a chair. Luke offers the rhythm back softly, then waits to see whether it becomes an invitation to explore together.
Encounter — offer something to explore
A sound, object, image, story or movement gives us something to meet. The invitation is shaped by what is happening in the room, with different ways to approach it.
A possible classroom momentA river image and a flowing phrase connect with a class theme. One person chooses a sound; another follows a movement with their eyes. Neither response needs to look like the other.
Co-create — weave contributions together
We develop what has found a connection. Luke offers enough shape to bring contributions together, while adjusting the pace, materials and direction with the group.
A possible classroom momentThe chair rhythm returns within a shared river soundscape. A staff member supports a learner’s preferred way of choosing when the sound begins or ends.
Notice — make space for what mattered
We attend to what seemed to connect, without requiring everyone to explain it in words. A pause, a return to a sound or a conversation with staff may help shape what comes next.
A possible classroom momentA learner asks for the same phrase again through their usual way of communicating. We return to it. Staff and Luke can reflect afterwards on what might be worth exploring further.
These are illustrative moments, not a fixed lesson sequence or promised outcomes. The parts of the arc can overlap or recur. Planning and curriculum connections provide a useful frame; what happens within it is shaped with the people present.
Towards an Anti-Ableist Creative Pedagogy
A major strand of this work has developed with artist Marc Woodhead and Paul Morrow through SEND arts projects and research. The enquiry asks what becomes possible when difference is treated as an artistic asset, and when the pedagogy itself is allowed to change in response to the people in the room.
“Difference is seen as an asset and a positive, and a space for creative exploration.”
Paul Morrow
From arriving to noticing
Across projects, a recurring arc has emerged: arriving, allowing response to arise, encountering sound or material, co-creating, and noticing what changed. This is not a rigid formula, but a useful orientation for holding complexity without reducing it.
Invisible processes matter
Some of the most important things in a session are easy to miss: regulation, absorption, self-direction, a new tolerance of a material, a shift in attention, a moment of relation, or someone choosing to return to an activity after leaving it. These do not always produce a neat object or measurable output, but they can be central to the creative experience.
“It’s the depth of thinking that goes into a moment of true student-centred learning that can then appear to be so easy when it is facilitated so well.”
Collaborative workshop artist
Deeper research
The existing Tuning In archive contains detailed case studies, audio, video, reflection and research material around anti-ableism, phenomenology, collaboration, qualitative assessment, material enquiry and embodied creative practice.