Zoë Walker works collaboratively with Neil Bromwich, artist and lecturer at Newcastle University. Walker & Bromwich are known internationally for their large-scale participatory events and exhibitions that invite audiences to imagine better worlds. Their ambitious, expansive artworks re-ignite Utopian ideologies through social sculpture, protest, pageant, celebration and contemplation, and have, at their core, a collective desire for an alternative way of living.

Walker & Bromwich’s dual practice seeks to explore the space between ‘what exists and what is possible’. Their distinctive, often idiosyncratic approach, explores contemporary life’s more perplexing and complex social, ecological, economic and political issues with humour and dexterity, while expressing their shared commitment to social cohesion, absurdist celebrations and the sublime. Walker & Bromwich work in response to specific sites and situations. At the core of their practice is an exploration of the role art can play as an active agent in society.

Outputs include:

Encampment of Eternal Hope, a solo exhibition at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary art Gateshead (5 Oct 2012 – 13 Jan 2013). A participatory sculptural installation, a post-apocalyptic survival camp, come field laboratory for cross-disciplinary collaboration, that seeks out alternative approaches to future living.

Celestial Radio (2002-12), a multi-media immersive artwork that extended out beyond the gallery walls, transmitting both light and sound from a radio station housed on a ‘glittering’ mirror-tiled yacht. The work draws on the specificity of site and context as key to re-examining the environments we inhabits. The project toured to Thessaloniki Biennale (Greece), MCA (Sydney, Australia), and  Turner Contemporary (Margate).

Panacea Casebook (2009-2010), a live multi-layered art event, that investigated the artist role within society and orthodox perceptions of art and medicine as cure-alls for society’s ills.  The event toured to five high-profile galleries across the UK, including Tate Britain, Modern Art Oxford and Baltic.

Orcadia and other Stories (2014) at The Pier Art Centre, Orkney was the first extensive survey of Walker & Bromwich’s work, spanning 15 years of production, presented as part of GENERATION: Celebrating 25 Years of Contemporary Art in Scotland.

Other solo exhibitions include ACCA Melbourne (AU); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (UK), Cornerhouse, Manchester (UK); Milton Keynes Gallery, (UK); CCC, Tours (FR);Glasgow International.

Walker & Bromwich have presented work at The Whitechapel Gallery, London (UK), The South London Gallery, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (FI), Kunstlerhaus, Vienna; Zeppelin Museum, Germany; Olympic Park London (UK), The Victoria and Albert Museum London, CCA Glasgow (UK), Scottish National Gallery of Contemporary Art, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (UK).

Their work has been featured by publications such as Frieze, Flash Art, Art Monthly, Art Review, MAP, The Guardian, and has featured on BBC1 Television Arts Programme 'Imagine'. A monograph of their work, 'Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich', is available through Cornerhouse Books.  

Zoe Walker’s numerous fellowships, commissions and awards include The Scottish Arts Council Australia Fellowship, The Pier Arts Centre Fellowship, Orkney, The Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship and The Art and Architecture Fellowship, Kielder Water, Northumberland, Welcome Trust Sci-Art Production Award and an AHRC grant for the Creative & Performing Arts.

Zoe Walker has presented papers at international conferences, Zeppelin Museum. Friedrichshafen, Higher State of Consciousness: The Psychedelic Event ICA London. Public Interactions: Dialogues on Art and Public Space International conference at the Australian National University, School of Art. Canberra: and New Artistic Agency KUVA Academy, Helsinki.

Zoe Walker teaches in the School of Art in Intermedia. In line with her practice as an artist she has run a number of innovative offsite projects with students and external organisations including The Bank of Reason with The Collective Gallery Edinburgh and Visiting Arts London, Art in the Public Realm with Slateford Green Eco Housing Estate and Dunedin Canmore Housing Association and The Art Lending Library with Market Gallery Glasgow, East Durham Creates Festival and NGCA Sunderland. She is currently working on an off-site, micro residency project with undergraduate students at Stanley Mills, a Historic Scotland property on the banks of the River Tay in Perthshire.

Zoe Walker has a BA in tapestry and Drawing from ECA, a Post Graduate in Sculpture From The Academy of Fine Art, Warsaw, and an MA from Goldsmiths University London. Zoe has taught at The Australian National University and Duncan of Jordanstone and has been visiting lecturer at The Royal Collage of Art London, Wimbledon Collage of Art University of London, Newcastle University and Sydney Collage of Art University of Sydney. She has been external examiner at RMIT University Melbourne.