UK-based abstract artist and educator, Sara Downham-Lotto founded Arts Lab in 2016. She has a background in Fine Art, Art History, Social Enterprise and more recently, Peace and Conflict Studies.
Sara set up the Lab as a consolidation of over 35 years exhibiting, curating and facilitating art in higher education institutions and communities in the UK and abroad. Passionate about social transformation and bringing people together through the arts, she wanted to co-create with artists and creative participants an organic model for changemakers across broad-ranging communities and organisations.
With the hiatus of Covid, new management at Dartington and the resulting closure of the Lab as a CIC, in 2022, Sara went to Senegal for 6 months for a re-think. Her experiences there inspired a natural transition into the field of Peace and Conflict.
In 2023, Sara enrolled at the University of Bradford to study for a Masters in Peace, Resilience and Social Justice. Her dissertation, Contributions of Contemporary Visual Art to Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation, shaped this latest iteration of Arts Lab as a platform supporting the field more specifically. Significantly influential was also a placement in Rwanda where she was ran a multi-disciplinary Visual Arts for Peace programme for students of Peace and Conflict Studies, together with a workshop for survivors of genocide. Finally, in this vocational ‘odyssey’ Sara owes much to the writings and wisdoms of peacebuilder and scholar, John Paul Lederach.
To find out more about Sara, her paintings and installations and teaching methodology, head to her website >>>>.
