williamvinegrad-2024-blog

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

A Degree in Exposure: White Cubes and Weeds

A Degree in Exposure: White Cubes and Weeds

As part of my perennial need to reflect, I’m looking back over the different stages of my life. This time, it's university.

During my time there, we were taught to aspire to become "white cube" artists. Most of my peers created assemblages of wire and concrete fallen forms and abstract structures. I could never quite make sense of it at the time. WHERE IS THE SKILL? I used to ask myself.

Now I think I understand the value in working in such a way but does it only have value when made by people who can afford to take those risks? Counter to that, you could argue someone’s gotta do it. But as long as we have disparity, I struggle not to find the approach superficial and distasteful.

Yes, it has value, but only in the right space, and when it’s made by people who don’t even realise they should be making it. The question arises: are we ready yet?

When I moved to university, it marked the beginning of operating in a space where no one knew me no history, no trauma, no ostracization.

Since beginning my recovery journey, and since my ADHD medication began waking up my brain, I’ve been able to reflect on that time and piece things together. I now realise it was utterly unsustainable for me but it shaped who I am today. But at what cost?

"Further to the typical definitions, ADHD also presents with emotional dysregulation and an inability to look back, to bring past performance forward to the present."

I finally got the chance to indulge in what made me tick the most: art. After a lifetime of being made to feel weird and othered for even hinting at creativity not so much by family, but by middle-class rugby-playing men this opportunity quickly became all-consuming.

My undiagnosed trauma-informed ADHD and abusive upbringing meant I had used my imagination as a survival mechanism: constantly daydreaming, imagining better worlds. That imagination was (and still is) vast. It’s now my priority.

Imagine your imagination being the root of your disability. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But if I can’t act on my need to create, I suffer. Life doesn’t want me to have imagination it wants me to fit the box. What chance does a poor, queer, neurodivergent artist from Hull have of breaking free from the grip of the 1%?

University gave me the chance to explore that imagination fully for the first time in my life. I had been alone for so long, aching to be seen and understood. My entire sense of validation became tied to my artwork. I became obsessed with getting good grades, something I’d never accessed before. I was raised to survive, not to learn.

I was a small-town indie boy from Hull, suddenly dropped into the deep end but I stepped up. I used humour as a shield (still do). Art school didn’t want me to be fun, it wanted me to be serious. I worked hard to be both.

Looking back, I cringe at some of my behaviours: the art school mentality, following the crowd, trying to belong.

I couldn’t understand why working hard didn’t always result in good grades. I even challenged tutors. I spent every summer working tirelessly to get ahead. So when it didn’t pay off, it hurt. But now, I get it.

In my final year, I gave it everything. I was the first in, last out 9am to 9pm, every day. I filled 15 sketchbooks, 15 research folders, created a degree show that both exposed and liberated me. It was bigger than anyone else's. The stars were aligned I was meant to get that First. But I didn’t. And it broke me.

It took years to recover. I had tutorials with every tutor responsible for grading. I had 15 exhibitions that year. I assumed I didn’t get the First because I hadn’t embraced "less is more." But I thought I’d done both quality and quantity.

In truth, community wasn’t on the radar. I had no idea what Arts Council England was, or how funding or sponsorship worked. I was just grateful to be there. Terrified, really. I couldn’t imagine liaising with anyone beyond the safety of the university. I remember one peer doing an internship at the local theatre it wasn’t even a possibility for me.

I made work alluding to environmental uncertainty, trying to straddle the line between contemporary and hippie. Some tutors warned me not to lean too far into the grassroots aesthetic. But now I see how much of my practice was about control. I’d had so little of it in my life. I even secretly referenced the marking criteria because we were told not to. It wasn’t cool. I anguished over even requesting it.

But I thought: couldn't I be both excellent and original?

Ironically, the criteria were ambiguous. How do you apply rules to creativity? In truth, we were being taught to make gallery-ready work. I didn’t know that then.

These reflections continue today, and have only become clearer through my MA. I waited 15 years to feel worthy enough to start. And once again, I found myself being more innovative than necessary. Unintentionally not following the spec. Specs?! They are boring. Specs hurt me. Formulas hurt me. But how can I survive without them?

It must have been confusing for the tutors to support me as an emerging performance artist because I had deliberately chosen the medium based on what had done well in the previous degree show. There were even rumours that painters would never get a First.

I was one of them! I had to change course. Although I will argue that I was always encouraged to push myself and recognise the value in trying new things, something fundamental to my practice today.

I started fabricating cutting, constructing, and collaging. I created ambiguous work inspired by weeds, nature’s underdogs. My research drew from books like The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins, the Stevie Wonder album of the same name, and an interest in shadow puppetry. I invented a character: the King of the Weeds, a hybrid of plant, human, and industrial forms. I photographed weeds in macro because I had noticed that their elevated intricacies made them look like the industrial structures they sat beside, to elevate them, and used those images to construct costumes.

I painted myself gold. I sang songs about nature. I was nude. It was terrifying. I rehearsed obsessively, trying to control the outcome. But performance is unpredictable.

I burnt myself out. Others seemed relaxed; they weren’t building their whole identity around this. I hadn’t lived. I had been hidden. Maybe that’s what made my work so potent.

As a trauma-informed ADHDer, I’m often seen as a novelty. But I’m not. I’m always this way. Once, my installation collapsed. My tutor called it poetic. During my mid-year exhibition, I sang naked and glittered in silver. My voice disappeared. A tech guy asked bluntly, “What was up with your voice?” Not malicious, just unaware. But it hurt.

Those moments are massive when you live with trauma-informed ADHD. I used to shake during performances. It was unbearable. But I persevered. Unexpected glitches falling foliage, fire alarms, broken tech became metaphors. Some tutors got it. Some didn’t. My intention wasn’t to make mistakes!

I performed my final piece alone, preparing in the disabled toilet. I walked silently through the crowd. The best version I ever did was during assessment. That’s something, right?

Some tutors were kind. Some students were cruel. The students who cared were mocked. Aloofness was currency. I tried to be everything at once liked, mysterious, respected.

There was a girl in the year above hostile, uncompromising, revered. She got the highest mark the school had ever seen. I was scared of her. But I decided that’s who I needed to be. Her coldness was seen as authority. That world rewarded toughness. The most performative students were praised the most. It made no room for vulnerability.

There were also students in other years especially working-class or northern peers, who were quietly excluded, either socially or academically. There were maybe five Geordies in my year. They were seen as common, as not quite fitting. I didn’t look down on them, but I didn’t speak up either. I kept quiet, just grateful to have fitted in at all.

When fees rose to £9k, a new cohort arrived. Ultra-driven. Their ambition was clinical, antisocial. They broke records for Firsts. The school cheered. But why were they so desperate?

I sought out tutors like Walker & Bromwich, who felt like kindred spirits. It wasn’t strategic, it was magnetic. I was grateful for those connections. I didn't really understand why they liked me at the time.. As time has gone on I have come to realise just how much we had in common at the time.

The atmosphere was built on false pomp and competition. Students played characters. Tutors hadn’t “made it.” Facebook had just arrived. One tutor lived on a garden boat under Tower Bridge. She was a hippy without being one. I loved that.

Times were simpler, but my trauma wasn’t yet visible to me. Back then, I didn’t know that 90% of my peers came from wealthy southern families. I scraped pennies together in summer, scavenging for food. They could call their parents. I couldn’t.

The system enabled this divide. It taught us to aspire to white cube spaces in London. Most of my peers moved back there, and made shallow careers in the arts. London the bubble where community is a dirty word.

I was just along for the ride, hiding my queerness. I didn’t understand the protests. The “uncool” kids occupied the uni. I didn’t join them.

One tutor told me, “Don’t worry about grades. The ones who don’t conform always do better.” Maybe it’s not about doing better. Maybe it’s about being real.

One peer told me, “Faye Green’s performance might have been technically perfect, but yours is the one everyone will remember.” I didn’t get it then. I do now. I was offended. Haha I didn't set out to be less than perfect!

I wonder if today’s art schools are more diverse, what kind of artwork they prioritise. We talk about climate collapse now. Back then, I just thought I should turn the light off.

Unintentionally, I was ahead of the curve. Now, students need 3 A’s to get in. I wouldn’t stand a chance not as someone with trauma-informed ADHD. And now, the government talks about cracking down on our neurodiverse fellows without even giving us the tools to be included. What chance do we have?

Artists are supposed to change the world. But who is being trained to do that? The ones with money? The ones who want ‘value for money’? You can’t teach artistry through “tactile workshops.” You need space, time, life. Not mummy and daddy’s cash. I didn’t want anymore than what was on offer. I was just grateful.

I returned to Hull and realised I didn’t have the means to be a concrete-cube artist. I am a community artist. I am contemporary. And I recognise the importance of not just encouraging community groups to "stick pasta on plates" as someone from ACE once joked but to elevate all forms of creativity. If that’s what someone needs to get to the concrete cubes, then that has value.

One day, I hope we all get to make art for its own sake. Just to exist. Just to be.

One of my fondest memories was the postcard auction we held to raise money for our degree show. We even tried to book David Dickinson. I submitted a drawing I’d made over the summer just something I liked. But when it came up for auction, the whole lecture theatre erupted in cheers, claps, whistles. For me. It was a fabulous, unforgettable moment. A sign, perhaps, that I was doing something right.

I also recently reconnected with a peer from those days, someone who made me feel safe. No pretence, no passive probing, no discomfort. They simply cared. We reminisced, and they said, “I think uni was amazing for you. I watched you grow and become the most amazing version of yourself. The confidence you had by the end was incredible.”

I’m so grateful for that reflection and for the perspective it’s given me, all these years later.

My work steadily grew darker and darker during that time colourful plants slowly became invisible black shadows. The only coloured element was me: gold. These days, my work has become all about colour. But gradually, I find myself returning to black and white only now, it's with clarity, purpose, and intention.

All reactions:

1Sydell Ann Myers

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

There’s something fascinating about shops like this one boldly declaring themselves the “BEST SHOP” in all caps, as if there’s no room for doubt. It’s a kind of confident branding you see a lot in areas with high migrant populations, and I can’t help but wonder about the psychology behind it. A particular favourite of mine is “THE ONE” (tick) On Spring Bank.

Assuming this shop is migrant-owned (as many are in cities like Hull), there’s a kind of unapologetic optimism at play here. It’s not subtle. It’s not corporate. It doesn’t pander to middle-class branding expectations of humility or irony. It just says: We are the best. End of discussion.

And honestly, maybe that is what overcoming looks like, especially for people who’ve had to fight to be seen, to survive, or to get a foothold in a tough system. Why be modest when you’ve built something from nothing? Why downplay success when the world rarely gives you the benefit of the doubt?

Of course, to many British sensibilities, it might come across as boastful, even slightly absurd. We’re conditioned to value understatement, to avoid “believing our own hype.” But that’s precisely what makes this kind of signage feel refreshing or at least worthy of pause.

It also reminds me of the way big supermarkets now go straight for the jugular in their ads, directly calling out their competitors by name. No more politeness. Just straight-up sales strategy. Survival in the market has become about boldness, visibility, and shouting louder than the next brand.

So maybe this shop isn’t naive or lacking perspective. Maybe it’s a strategic response to a cultural and economic landscape that’s increasingly aggressive. No more small talk. Just survival with style.

There’s something undeniably bold and strangely captivating about shopfronts like this one. BEST SHOP, in all caps, declared without irony or subtlety, as if the matter were settled.

No branding agency, no focus group. Just confidence, colour, and certainty. It’s a kind of naming you often see in migrant-owned businesses across areas like Spring Bank and Beverley Road in Hull.

And maybe that confidence is the point.

These parts of the city represent a rich, sometimes chaotic, tapestry of global cultures. They’re heritage areas but not just in the architectural sense. They are living archives of movement, resilience, and cultural collision.

Alongside that, schemes like the Beverley Road Townscape Heritage Project have attempted to reinstate the grandeur of Hull’s Victorian past.

In some cases particularly British-owned buildings restoration has been achievable. But in others, like the Brunwick Arcade, efforts have faltered. An Indian restaurant once collapsed the structure by removing two supporting walls; only its façade has since been restored.

Other nearby businesses were invited to adopt "sympathetic signage" in keeping with the area's historic look. Most declined.

Why?

Because heritage, like beauty, is not neutral. Whose values does it reflect? Does it mean polished restraint and heritage colour palettes? Or can it also mean visual boldness, unapologetic brightness, and a different sense of pride?

To some, a storefront plastered in flags and neon might seem garish or unrefined. But to others, it's visibility, survival, and defiance. These signs don’t whisper, they shout. In a world where migrant communities are often forced to make themselves small, maybe there’s power in taking up visual space. We are here. We are proud. We are the best.

It also mirrors what we see in broader retail culture and how UK supermarkets now directly name and shame competitors in ads. There’s no more room for soft sell. The economic climate demands boldness, whether you’re Tesco or a corner shop. And in this context, calling yourself BEST SHOP isn’t naive it’s strategic. It’s about refusing to be overlooked.

Still, this tension between “heritage” and “garishness,” between muted respectability and cultural expression, reflects deeper divisions. We often talk about respecting a place, but who decides what respect looks like? For some, heritage equals safety and consistency. For others, especially those who’ve been historically excluded from such narratives, heritage feels like another set of rules they weren’t consulted on.

So when I see a shop like this, I don’t just see a loud sign. I see a complex act of belonging. I see someone who believes in what they’ve built. And maybe, just maybe, that kind of confidence isn’t about arrogance it’s about survival. It's a different kind of protest: quiet, everyday, and bright red.

And yet, we must also ask harder questions ones we often avoid for fear of fuelling the wrong kinds of assumptions. If some of these shops are also linked to underground economies, including laundering or trafficking, what then?

Is the visual boldness part of a strategy to exploit the asset quickly before it is taken away ruled by fear, instability, or being found out?

Is this why, even after much consultation, some business owners choose not to engage with heritage schemes? What might be at stake for them that isn't being spoken aloud?

These aren’t questions of accusation, but of complexity. Urban space is layered. Economic survival, legitimacy, pride, fear they all collide in places like Beverley Road.

So when I see a shop like this, I don’t just see a loud sign. I see a quiet storm of contradictions. Confidence and caution. Presence and precarity. Belonging, but on shifting ground.

There are lots of angles to consider here, but at the end of the day I believe that it is a bigger discussion about survival. Yes where values and ethics can be compromised in a significant way.

I hope I have not made too much in the way of assumptions and want to address and figure out where i stand on a 'topic' that keeps coming up for me.

Hopefully the pending Riot Recovery Project i am soon to embark on can make some considerations around the contents of this post and dare to use colour in a way that maybe rejects heritage and the Victorian grandeur of times gone by? Maybe it can meld all the things? After all i do LOVE a good steeple.

The spaces both outside and in have become playgrounds for folk who are often waiting on a decision re their settlement status. This means groups of 'men' can be seen hanging around on the streets smoking eating pumpkin seeds etc... As someone who has recently moved to the Newland Avenue area, I wanted to explore why this dynamic was starting to make me feel unsafe? Weather there was value in my feeling this way?

Some research and perspective helped me to relax. Context in the realisation that our Migrant / Refugee communities are more social and collective than us 'Brits' something synonymous with their culture back home? Often having fled difficult sometimes devastating circumstance.

Anyways I'm rambling and have been for a while. But my point is don't be quick to judge reflect on your own bias both visible and hidden and remember that this world is and should be a shared space. I am pleased to be able to say i come from a town as diverse at Hull even if that diversity was never intended.

We are all just surviving.

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

Ghosts of Access: Class, Memory and the Cost of Studio Space in Hull

Ghosts of Access: Class, Memory and the Cost of Studio Space in Hull

Allenby Commercial are responsible for a growing number of ‘arty’ developments across Hull, the kinds of spaces you see in design blogs, dressed up in industrial lighting and “good taste.”

On the surface, it all looks progressive: fresh paint, cultural ambition, a city on the up. But for me, the story behind these spaces feels heavier. It’s not about architecture, it's about memory.

When I moved back to Hull after university, I didn’t initially make the connection. But in time, I realised that the people behind these new creative hubs were familiar.

Not personally, not really but symbolically. I recognised the surname. The family. The quiet power they had over the social terrain I grew up in. And suddenly, I was back in school, back in a body that didn’t fit the room it was in.

I don’t remember everything my brain has worked hard to forget but I remember being one of maybe two kids in the entire year who wasn’t invited to the prom afterparty.

Hosted, I later found out, by a member of the Alanby family. I remember sitting at home while the rest of my year celebrated together, feeling not just left out, but marked. It wasn’t just a party. It was a message.

You don’t belong here.

Not everyone who excluded me did so intentionally. I even became friendly with the same person later, in sixth form and of course, that moment of ostracization was never discussed. Why would it be? For them, it was a night. For me, it stayed lodged in my nervous system.

At school, I spent years trying to conceal how little I had. Wearing the same ink-stained shirt under a jumper all summer. Dreading non-uniform days. Avoiding eye contact when my clothes revealed the holes in my family’s finances.

I remember being told to remove my sweatshirt and refusing not out of defiance, but desperation. When I did finally take it off, I was mocked. Not asked why. Just laughed at. I was poor. And the room knew it.

Fast forward. Years later, the same class dynamics now in grown-up clothing show up again. I can’t afford a studio with Allenby Commercial. I don’t know how I’d be treated in that space, even if I could. And maybe nothing bad would happen. Maybe everyone would be lovely.

But the trepidation is there. Because I remember what it felt like to be on the outside of their world then as a teenager, now as a working-class, neurodivergent artist trying to survive in a city that’s shrinking its spaces for people like me.

It’s not about one family. It’s about what happens when wealth accumulates and then quietly shapes the terrain of a city’s creative scene. When access is replaced with aesthetic. When “community” is defined by those who’ve never had to fight for it.

Allenby Commercial wasn’t a cultural developer when I was in school. I think they were farmers. But now they are and in a strange, full-circle way, their world once again overlaps with mine. Only this time, it’s about studios, not after-parties.

And still, I ask the same question: is there space for me?

People change. Places change. I’ve changed. But what doesn’t change is the embodied memory of exclusion of knowing, before you even enter a room, that it might not be yours.

So when I talk about access, about inclusion, about care I’m not speaking abstractly. I’m speaking from the place of a kid who sat at home while the whole year partied.

Who learned young what it means to be uninvited. And who now finds himself, once again, trying to make art in a city where the door may be open but only if you can afford the key.

I guess as long as these spaces prioritise profit over people, there's always the potential for someone like me to have a bad time.

Because it’s not just about affordability it’s about atmosphere, ethos, and who the space is really for. When the bottom line comes first, care falls through the cracks. Inclusion becomes branding, not behaviour. And those of us who move through the world with less money, less certainty, less inherited belonging end up absorbing the cost. Again.

And sometimes, it’s not even their spaces that fail you sometimes, it’s the ones you helped to build.

I co-founded GROUND in 2016. It was never perfect, but it came from a real place a desire for something different, something radical, something rooted in care and community. In many ways, it was that. We made something special in a part of Hull that had long been neglected, and I’ll always be proud of what we built.

But over time, something shifted. We were all changing growing, struggling, surviving in different ways. My own life was turbulent: undiagnosed ADHD, housing insecurity, grief. I didn’t always have the tools to communicate what I needed, and GROUND didn’t always have the capacity to hold it.

What started as a sanctuary began to feel like a place I couldn’t reach anymore. Not through malice, but through mismatch.

Maybe that’s the most painful kind of loss not a dramatic falling out, just a slow, quiet drifting. A space you still care about, but can no longer call home.

So when I talk about access, about inclusion, about care I’m not speaking abstractly. I’m speaking from the place of a kid who sat at home while the whole year partied. Who wore the same shirt all summer. Who helped create a studio from nothing and still ended up feeling like a stranger inside it.

I know what exclusion feels like from the inside and out. That’s why I keep writing. That’s why I keep speaking. Because I still believe in spaces that don’t just open the door they check who's missing, and ask why.

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

New Artwork. Moody, Scrophulariaceae Disco. Party for the Weeds. Still Life 2025.

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

New Artwork. Moody, Scrophulariaceae Disco. Party for the Weeds. Still Life 2025.

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

A City on the Edge: On Hull, Independence, and the Space In Between

Hull is often described as a “city on the edge” geographically, economically, and emotionally. Located at the mouth of the Humber Estuary and surrounded by water and industrial ghosts, it feels both physically and culturally apart from the rest of the country. Historically a major port, Hull’s economic decline has left it somewhat peripheral. And yet, its people carry a fierce pride and sense of self-reliance. It’s an underdog city rarely in the national spotlight, but with a strong, unshakable identity.

But is independence always a strength?

Living here, I’ve noticed how easily independence tips into defensiveness often without people even realising it. The attitude of “I’ll do it myself” or “I don’t need anything” emerges even (especially) when help is needed most. Hull, I’ve come to realise, is deeply family-first. Career-focused individuals are rare, and often judged. For me, it’s been about learning to find the in-between.

I first began to understand this family-first culture when I was 23. My mum, a spiritualist medium, invited me to film one of her shows. I’d never fully understood what she did and, truthfully, I’d always carried a mix of hesitation and embarrassment about it. Her practice has divided opinion within our family, and I’ve often felt caught between trepidation and awe when speaking about her work to others.

At the time, I was studying at Newcastle University, immersed in my identity as a white-cube artist, distanced from my small-village upbringing. But something shifted during that show. Held in a working-class pocket of urban Hull a world away from my academic bubble I witnessed something undeniable.

My mum wasn’t just “doing a show.” She was connecting. Singing Elvis songs, making people laugh, holding space for something intangible. Then, quietly and clearly, she passed on messages from the spirit world.

People queued patiently, hoping to hear from someone they’d lost. My mum, despite living with ME (a chronic illness that causes extreme fatigue), held them with care and honesty. I saw her speak in ways I’d never seen before intimately, respectfully, playfully. The emotional responses were real: tears, relief, closure. You can’t fake that kind of catharsis.

For the first time, I thought: this can’t be dismissed. This isn’t just performance it’s something more. Maybe even art.

Spiritualism is often met with mistrust or accusations of exploitation. But I know my mum. She’s not doing this for money or status. And even if someone walks away with nothing more than a sense of comfort, maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s the point.

In Hull, aspiration looks different. We don’t grow up dreaming of careers we grow up dreaming of staying close to what we love. Family. Familiarity. Survival. 

In contrast, the career-driven Northerners I know and I once included myself are often fiercely independent, sometimes to the point of isolation. Blinded by our need for validation at the expense of community and what we are actually capable of. We show face. 

But lately, I’ve realised: I need community. I need connection. I need the mess, the vulnerability, the weirdness, the realness. I need what my mum gave those people that night.

So maybe Hull is on the edge. But maybe that’s not a weakness. Maybe it gives us a clearer view of what’s important: connection, care, and the courage to stand somewhere in between  not entirely dependent, not entirely alone.

Somewhere in the middle, there’s balance. And maybe that’s where we find the truth.

I saw a side to my mother I wasn’t familiar with. I came to understand that she takes a moment to connect with the spirit world a space where, as she describes it, people patiently queue to pass on messages to their loved ones, using her as a vessel.

Living with ME, she is often depleted. It can be hard to have consistent conversations with her about her practice, and the stories she tells shift from time to time. But one image has stayed with me: she says the spirit world is filled with the best art, and that people live happily there peacefully. And honestly, I think that’s a beautiful picture.

Blood is thicker than water more often than not in this part of the world. I’ve felt left behind at times, often by those prioritising family even when family is in the wrong. My mum will never side with me if I’m ‘wrong,’ and the same goes for others close to me. I don’t believe in loyalty for its own sake. Love should come with discernment. I have a ‘conventional’ family, but I also have chosen a family. For me they are one and the same, a term often used within LGBTQ+ circles to describe the people we gather when our biological families can’t or won’t accept us.

No one should feel left behind just because they don’t have a conventional family. Family should be more than “looking after your own.” It should be a safe space and safety means reflection, not just protection. Family is a privilege.

This flux between independence and collaboration is something I’m exploring in my thesis. Snufkin, for example, from Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories, values solitude and freedom above all. He lives authentically, untethered from external expectations. He’s not interested in possessions, but in simplicity, beauty, and being. What do those expectations look like for us, especially in queer communities? What does it mean to embody a spirit of independence, while also craving chosen family?

"Chosen family" is a concept born of necessity. In the face of rejection, queer communities have always taken care of each other. As Kate Weston and others have written, queering kinship means rethinking the very structure of family disrupting the idea that blood or law are the only valid ties.

While the Moomins aren’t explicitly queer, they live in a world shaped by fluid identities, non-conformist relationships, and characters who defy binary roles. Snufkin, Moominmamma, Too-Ticky they all challenge traditional family and gender expectations in soft but radical ways. Their relationships aren’t transactional; they’re chosen, tender, and often non-verbal.

The Moomin stories also reflect collective survival in the face of catastrophe. From floods to comets to volcanoes, these characters face disaster not by hoarding or fleeing but by gathering together, huddling close. In Comet in Moominland, when the comet comes, they sit in a cave and hold each other like a wartime bomb shelter. Afterwards, it’s quiet. And there, in that quiet, Jansson gives us the core of her philosophy: that what saves us is friendship, art, and the courage to begin again.

Maybe that’s what Hull teaches too. That hardship makes us huddle. That identity, family, and independence are more fluid than we think. And that in the space between survival and softness, between detachment and dependence, something important lives. Maybe even something like home.

Closing Reflection: Embracing the Unknown

Right now, my experience of life in Britain is one of deep division a country fractured by fear and power. You can see it clearly in how the media scapegoats the trans community, using identity as a distraction from the real crisis we face. In this ‘climate’, you’re often forced to choose a side: you’re either resistant to change or you’re fighting for it. There’s rarely space for nuance, for the in-between.

And I wonder if that’s how people sometimes respond to my mum’s work with fear, mistrust, or ridicule. Because it challenges certainty. Because it invites mystery. And for many, that’s deeply uncomfortable. People cling to what feels familiar to family, to tradition, to inherited ideas of how life should look because the unknown feels like a threat.

But for me, the unknown has always been a place of safety. Of curiosity. Of possibility. It’s where I find solace in mystery, in the magical, in everything that resists easy explanation. As an artist, I live for that space. It’s where hope lives.

So long as I can look at a flower and marvel at its kaleidoscopic structure, it's impossible geometry, its unspoken logic I know there’s still a future worth dreaming about. A future not defined by fear, but by wonder. Not by division, but by a shared embrace of all that we don’t yet know.

[williamvinegrad-2024-blog]

Slow and Steady: A Manifesto for Inclusive Protest

Slow and Steady: A Manifesto for Inclusive Protest

I have recently realised that I am not built for confrontation. Not because I do not care, but because I have lived too long in the margins where survival often depends on silence, discretion, and the careful reading of rooms. I know the cost of speaking out when your livelihood hangs by a thread. I know how capitalism trains us to hold our tongues, to become invisible, to swallow truth in order to endure.

Many of my peers in activist and artistic circles are bolder, louder, and more confrontational. Often, they have the safety nets I never had: families, finances, cultural permissions that allow them to speak recklessly without fearing total collapse. I cannot fault them for their courage, but I also cannot join them in it. We live, it seems, in different worlds. And so I protest differently. I create.

I build spaces where inclusion, gentleness, and slow transformation are acts of resistance. I make art that invites rather than attacks, that offers rather than demands. I believe protest can be a conversation, not a confrontation. I believe that real change, the kind that lasts, that roots itself deeply comes not only through outrage, but through patience, tenderness, and endurance.

It is not a weakness to refuse to burn bridges for the sake of being heard. It is a strength to cultivate connection in a world obsessed with shouting. The ‘angrier’ we get the more ammunition powers have.

Historically, British politeness has been linked to ideals of civility and restraint, reflecting an emphasis on emotional control, indirect communication, and a preference for understatement. This can be seen in the way British people often avoid direct confrontation or soften criticisms with humor or euphemisms.

However, the concept of politeness is complex. On one hand, it fosters inclusive and respectful public spaces; on the other, it can serve as a mechanism of social control, sometimes masking deeper power dynamics or excluding those unfamiliar with its unwritten rules (such as immigrants or outsiders to certain class cultures).

Even peaceful protest contradicts values of politeness. Blockades stopping folk from living their daily lives etc. This gives our government ammunition to ‘tut’ at us. Hull was awarded 270k to respond to and to distribute to activity that counter responds to the Summer Riots of 2024. A drop in the ocean, when we consider why we have refugees and immigrants here in the first place at the hands of the global arms trade that we readily profit from.

Starmer condemned the riots as "far-right thuggery" and emphasised that such actions would not be tolerated. He stated, "You will regret taking part in this disorder, either directly or those whipping up this disorder online," highlighting the government's commitment to holding perpetrators accountable. ​

Such behaviours give our government further permission to reiterate what we the Great British public will not tolerate as per our ‘values’ this gives aggressors more room to champion this constructed belief system.

In this climate, the push for politeness becomes both a cultural norm and a political strategy. It asks us to express resistance only in ways that are palatable to those in power effectively neutralising it. That is the double-bind: if we are too polite, we risk being ignored; if we are too forceful, we risk being punished and discredited. For me it is about finding balance, protesting whilst safeguarding myself.

In contemporary Britain, politeness is both celebrated and critiqued. While it continues to shape interactions from local communities to political discourse it also faces questions about authenticity and whether surface-level civility can coexist with meaningful social justice and equity.

If we fail to recognise the importance of tact, grace, active listening and understanding as per our Personal, Cultural and Structural make-up and that of others. The Government will win, they want to polarise us, so we procrastinate on the ‘fluffy’ details that allow them to play monopoly with our lives. Distractive rhetorics. When we recognise this and find healthy ways to communicate that do not alienate our contemporaries we will unify and overcome.

This takes time. SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE.

I know we are running out of time. Climate collapse, trans rights, racial injustice, economic exploitation the urgency is real and crushing. But even in urgency, I choose a steady path. Slow does not mean passive. Steady does not mean complacent.

To believe that even now, even here, invitation can still move mountains is an act of quiet defiance. I understand how difficult it is to embody that stance when lives are at risk and being lost. For some, aggression comes far too easily so ingrained they don’t even recognise it.

If we respond in ways that are ‘loaded’ or emotionally charged, I believe we risk becoming counterproductive, even regressive, in achieving the very aims we set out to meet.

The truth is, I don’t really know how to be angry. I’ve spent much of my life carefully ensuring I never inconvenience anyone. For now, it’s business as usual… but watch this space.

This is my protest. This is my resistance. This is my way.

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Although people have shown a lot of enthusiasm for the XXL onion, I have yet to secure a sale. With this in mind, I’ve had no option but to up my game please see the attached pictures for reference.

Additionally, I’d love to share the story of the Onion with you all and its continuing journey.

In a moment of fun, I decided to list a red onion for sale on the Avenues & Dukeries page, which pleasantly sparked a swift influx of similarly good-humoured responses.

As part of my work as an Artist and Community Engagement Practitioner, I support activities at Gipsyville Library twice a week and have done so for over a year now. For the most part, I work with and alongside a group of wonderful women who live in and around the Gipsyville area.

The activities at Gipsyville Library are partly developed in collaboration with Absolutely Cultured, who work closely with residents to make decisions about what happens. Craft plays a big part in our creative output and collective ambitions, and we’ve also had the pleasure of listening to and engaging with a number of fabulous guest speakers who bring a whole myriad of perspectives and experiences to the table.

After a significant period of personal hardship, I embarked on a journey with Absolutely Cultured, as part of commitments linked to my Master’s studies in Youth and Community Engagement. I was nervous, lacking in confidence, and, to be honest, scared words not usually associated with me. In fact, quite the opposite.

Our friendships have become so significant that just last week, a few residents and I ventured to Bury Market, just outside Manchester. Les Holland took us all for only £15! For some context, my onion-related content also exists on our private Gipsyville & Friends page, not too dissimilar to what you’ve seen on Avenues & Dukeries.

Onions were very much on my mind. And lo and behold, what should I find at Bury Market while ambling around with my wife Sally? The XXL Onion! Priced at 3 for £1.00, according to a nearby café-sitter only for me to discover at the till that the price was actually determined by weight. I settled on one. And what a ONE it is.

After plenty of onion-related tomfoolery, puns, and presentation ideas, I decided to list the XXL Onion online again this time priced at £99.00. A real bargain if you ask me!

This prompted Ms. Harriet Jones to comment:

“I can't tell you how much joy your posts bring me, William. Really hoping the people of Hull see the world as a great big Onion, today and always. Keep doing what you are doing.”

I was so proud of this comment, I showed it to everyone I came across that day. Later, my friend and colleague Marianne Lewsley-Stier invited me out for a drink with herself, her partner, and her friend Harriet. We needed to unwind after the Mayoral vote.

I arrived just ahead of them on my bike. As I went inside to get us a drink, a woman appeared and shouted “ONION” at me haha! It was Harriet, the very person who had left me that lovely message. I couldn’t believe it. And then, right at that moment, Marianne walked in and threw her arms around Harriet. I mean, HOW SMALL IS THE WORLD?! We laughed and soaked up the strangeness and delight of the moment.

Today I decided to have even more fun with the Onion. I brought it to Gipsyville and got the residents and volunteers involved in helping me with my vision: elevating the onion onto a plinth and surrounding it with sparkly greatness.

Let this ONION be our beacon in a political landscape that is well, frankly scary and unpredictable. A lesson in how something 'small' and silly can bring so much joy and fun in the midst of these dark times.

With the announcement that Luke Campbell has secured the position of Mayor. I figured now would be a good time to announce that I recently secured some funding to support activity with young people affected by the Summer 2024 Rioting.

This funding has been secured via the Riot Recovery Fund. Money made available to Hull via central government, in the aftermath of said riots to demonstrate to those involved that their behaviour is not welcome and that ALL communities are welcome here in our home Hullywood.

Although a drop in the ocean, when we think about the reality of why Hull has become 'home' to our foreign friends. We are still grateful for the gift. And that folks like myself are able to lead on projects such as this that promote inclusion from the off.

I appreciate that Mr Campbells campaign and resulting position as Mayor, could potentially be triggering for the very communities his wider party aim to alienate, but i want you all to know that i stand with you, that i am one of you.

I am still in the midst of formulating exactly what this activity will look like, as so much of this is dependant on whom we decide to work with.

But rest assured, the project will be inclusive, representative, LOUD and welcoming to all involved.

It will spread nothing but love and include a whole myriad of voices that need elevation.

Watch this space.

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