Sea Shucksmith of Nether Regions tells us about reclaiming the narrative, nurturing empathy and creating the Teeny Tiny Library from Beyond the Binary

Hi Sea – welcome to AOH!  Have you ever taken part as a guest artist before?

Last year was my first involvement in Artists Open Houses. I was part of a group exhibition at the Wellbeing Hub at Preston Park, which showcased artwork by local artists with mental health difficulties. It was a really powerful experience to have my work framed and on public display, and it gave me the confidence to share my work more widely. It’s been a very busy and creative year since then; I got some Arts Council funding to develop my practice and have had work displayed in several galleries (including the fabulous Liberation Art Gallery, who are also taking part in the Open Houses). It feels very exciting to be able to curate and host an open house this year, and a fitting end to a journey which in many ways started off with AOH.

How did you choose the name of your Open House? 

Well, I’d like to pretend it had great significance, but I’m afraid it doesn’t! I enjoy inviting people to visit my Nether Regions. It started off as a joke and just stuck. I think it fits the offbeat, slightly punk vibe visitors can expect!
The space is also quirky and subterranean; I’ve taken over my long-suffering partner’s basement living room. It’s not the first time it’s been a venue, actually. When he moved into the flat above, the basement was undeveloped with a lot of spiders and bare brick, though it had an interesting hidden history (there were mysterious bakery ovens hidden behind a stud wall). For Brighton Fringe 2019, I turned it into a nuclear fallout bunker, complete with many tins of baked beans. I ran ‘End Times’ in it, an immersive escape room/theatre show. Despite being built mainly from gaffer tape and cardboard, Nether Regions won Best Venue at Brighton Fringe 2019. Given all that, it felt wrong to change the name, even though the spiders and tins of baked beans have been banished and replaced with lovely art!

You Can’t Choose Them – Sea Shucksmith

Would you like to tell us about your work and what drawing and creativity mean for you? 

I started drawing and collaging as a way of dealing with some quite heavy stuff. I started by drawing memories, recording flashbacks, exploring concepts and contradictions by doodling them. As my mental health has improved, I have been able to expand into other subjects and media, exploring things around me, instead of only things inside my head.

My work explores being out of sync with the heteronormative/neurotypical world around me. Being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world means that early on in life you learn to trim the edges off your senses to mask and appear ‘normal’. The process of creating art feels profound for me as it re-connects me with the fullness of my senses. I experience such intense AuDHD joy when I create; hyperfocusing on patterns, details and the intuitive experience of drawing. It feels like I’m reclaiming my narrative as one of creativity and recovery instead of survival. My artwork helps me to communicate the complexities of the experiences I have had on my own terms. By inviting viewers into my history & experience, I try to personalise conflicts and perceptions around disability, neurodivergence, queerness, gender & fatness.

Sensory Joy- Sea Shucksmith

Can you tell us about The Teeny-Tiny Library from Beyond the Binary? 

The Teeny Tiny Library from Beyond the Binary is a hands-on installation featuring 100+ miniature zines to browse and enjoy. When you peek into the doll’s house-sized library, you might see story-time with a tiny drag queen, a pocket-sized coffee shop, or a meeting of community activists. It’s a mini-exploration of queer neurodivergent joy – an intimate, chaotic collage of doodles, diary fragments, and sensory textures. It’s a love letter to the nonlinear, the hyperfixated, the overwhelmed, and the quietly defiant.

Mainstream narratives often flatten queer and disabled experiences into trauma or triumph, hero or villain, this work dwells on the in-between: the soft, strange, and specific. I hope visitors will leave wondering, “What stories are we missing when we only listen to the loudest voices? What beauty lives in the margins, in the complicated, in the tangled?”. It feels more important than ever to combat the divisive and polarising media and political discourse. Perhaps by nurturing empathy for people whose lived experiences differ from our own, the Teeny Tiny Library can go some way towards this.

Which other artists will be exhibiting with you?  

All the artists at Nether Regions are taking part in the Artists Open Houses for the first time this year, so there’s a real buzz and excitement in the venue! We have a great mix of styles and media.

Roisin o’Hare (she/her), @weevilmakescrafts, makes beautiful, richly coloured resin pendants and jewellery. For the AOH 2025, Roisin has also turned her hand to crafting one-of-a-kind ceramics, beautiful birds nests of delicate wire intricately wrapped around upcycled beads…and a life sized needle-felted magpie!

Resin Pendants – Roisin O’Hare

Ash (they/them), @ash_sandwich,  specialises in traditional and digital illustrations. Ash’s work is currently exploring themes and archetypes found in tarot, combining these with their signature blend of body horror, dark humour and uniquely bold colour blends.

This Too – Ash

Grace Dunford (she/her), @gracedunford, was the winner of The Business of Art Prize at the prestigious Sussex Contemporary 2024. Grace handprints, cuts and folds her sculptural geometric prints, using thread to add further layers of pattern and colour.

Geometric Study – Grace Dunford

Bryony May’s (they/them), @bryonymayart powerful political illustrations make strong and vibrant statements about Anarchist values and inclusive representation. Their resin work is created using layers of UV resin with colouring, text and embellishments between the layers.

Best Friends -Bryony May

What are you most looking forward to about doing an Open House?

Living here in Brighton and Hove, the Open Houses are such a vibrant part of the local art scene, and I’m excited to be part of the collective energy of that! I’m really buzzing to have the chance to connect directly with people who are interested in my work. So much of the world is online these days that it’s rare to have an opportunity to meet people face to face – you get to chat, see their reactions in person, and have a few lovely, unexpected conversations that can be really inspiring. AOH feels like a real celebration of creativity and community, and I’m thrilled to be a part of that.

Is here anything else you would like to tell us? 

Just a quick plug for the Beyond the Level Trail, which has some amazing houses and guest artists on it, including Nether Regions. We’ve also got a Treasure Trail – there are cheeky seagulls hidden in most of the houses for visitors to find. There are some great prizes up for grabs so pop along for an entry form and start searching!

Vist Nether Regions at:
59a Clyde Road, Brighton, BN1 4NN

No. 7 on the Beyond The Level Trail 

seashucksmith.co.uk/nether_regions
www.instagram.com/seashucksmith/