Al Hopwood is an award winning artist, writer and curator. He has made moving image, performance and exhibition projects with major international galleries including Tate Britain, Hayward Gallery, ICA London, Wellcome Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum and Mona (Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania). He has collaborated extensively with actors, filmmakers, writers, magicians, musicians, comedians, designers, cognitive psychologists, academics and scientists. He was Arts Editor of the style magazine Sleazenation and he's written extensively for Art Review. In 2013 he was the first visual artist to be awarded a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellowship and in 2019 he co-curated Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic at Wellcome Collection. He's worked under a number of different guises over the years including the fictional self help company WITH and A.R. Hopwood.
"My work explores the cathartic potential and ethical limits of fiction in projects that are funny, poignant and serious all at the same time. I revel in the interplay between fact and fiction, however I do this with a view to asking where the fictive should leave the truth alone (whilst also considering what kind of ‘truth’ can be found in fiction). I’m interested in communicating the psychological glitches that explain our vulnerability to suggestion, in ways that invite my audience to reflect critically on their own memories, beliefs and biases. I make art that explores the edges of storytelling so that I can further understand the use-value of fiction in our misinformation age"