Connor Sansby is a poet, producer and artist, working with language and space.

My work explores class politics, neurodivergence and the human experience. Raised in the working class seaside town of Margate, long before its modern day arts regeneration. I create temporary spaces that aim to transform the audience's relation to place.

This can take the form of a quiet, near meditative, poetry reading, or the creation of installation sculptures that interrogate the neurodivergent experience of space, by disrupting lines. I have created a room being broken by a woodpecker as a statement on autistic stimming and the identity model of autism, a collection of straight lines by neurodivergent artists to understand the concept of drawing and the value of imperfection, and given away thousands of poetry postcards to the public to challenge the idea that people don’t like poetry.

My work makes use of tape, string and other everyday materials to put the focus on the idea rather than the execution. As a working class artist, my use of material allows audiences to intuate the construction of my work, and begin the process of understanding the conceptual nature more readily. I believe as artists we need to hold doors open, rather than place the expectation on our audiences to come to us.

I draw inspiration from my own neurodivergence, as an autistic and dyspraxic person. Dyspraxia is almost a dyslexia of the body, and as someone who perceives space and architecture differently, I offer the ability to disrupt, to create play, where before there was order. As a working class artist, I aim to create work that speaks to non-traditional art audiences, inviting exploration, humour and conversation. Water is a recurrent motif in my projects, inspired by my life living by the sea.

My work frequently draws upon digital tools to add layers of meaning. With the prevalence of the internet, mobile phones and social media, we experience the modern world as a hybrid of physical and digital being, and there is no longer a virtue in refusing to understand the existent digital landscape of society.

I aim to expand my practice into the participatory, creating work where audiences form a central element in the visual and experiential nature. I am particularly interested in the role of reactive materials, such as hydrophobic coatings or thermochromatic ink, that can be used to create public poetry installations that act as a dialogue with audiences instead of a demand.