Alyson Minkley (1968) is a British/American social sculptor who uses dialogue, co-creation, and embodiment to question socio-cultural and neuro-norms. Recurring themes explore the dimensionality of personal space and inter-relationships between human emotion and didactic systems, often presented with a playful misappropriation of formal etiquette.

Minkley juxtaposes traditional & contemporary media, with particular focus on tensions between materiality/immateriality in the context of climate catastrophe. Selection of slow-process materials, like ceramics, embroidery, or multi-channel video editing, facilitates embodiment of an extended conceptual thinking process within the making. She likes interdisciplinary collaboration with social scientists and performance/digital creatives and often develops works co-creatively with audiences.

Alyson returned to practice studying MA Fine Art at Bath Spa, completing in 2021 with distinction, after a 20-year hiatus, parenting, and working full-time in education. Now seeking an alternative solidarity as antithesis to systemic scrutiny of the individual, engendering conversation across disparate groups is a critical aspect of her methodology. This is most recently evident in the ArtsCouncil-funded tour of Synapse with Social Scaffolding Art Collective which engages and co-creatively connects a cumulative audience of thousands across six venues regionally in the Southwest.

In the last year, Alyson has undertaken a socially engaged project with Arts & Culture for staff at Weston-Super-Mare hospital, co-created a commission for Forest of Imagination in a local school, and curated/collaborated on the award-winning arts & health Project Becomings in Bristol with the Southmead Project. Datafield (2020) was long-listed for UK New Artist 2022 and is currently exhibited in the RWA Open 2023. Alyson has recently been long-listed for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2024.