Blackpool Rock

The newly commissioned Blackpool Rock sculpture for this year’s Lightpool Festival continues the love story first told through the artist's earlier work for the Blackpool Illuminations.

Inspired by the idea of dance as a language of love, the piece also draws on the playful humour of 1970s postcards, childhood memories of The Beano, and games like Operation. The artist has created two cheeky characters who celebrate Blackpool’s enduring relationship with dance, from the elegance of the Tower Ballroom to the energy of Northern Soul, wearing badges featuring artwork by local disabled artists, embedding the town’s creative DNA into the sculpture itself.

Drawing from a personal love of theatricality, the figures wear masks and reveal anatomical interiors, blending whimsy with a deeper exploration of the body. The bold, fibreglass style references the artist’s Northern childhood and formative encounters with seaside arcade sculptures, which served as an early art education.

Proudly portraying disability, one character wears a platform shoe, the other callipers, a theme central to the artist’s practice. This work was created with thanks to Lightpool and the Grundy Art Gallery.

Jason Wilsher-Mills MBE is a UK-based artist whose vibrant, large-scale works celebrate disability, working-class heritage, and popular culture through humour and cutting-edge technology.

Born in Wakefield in 1969, his experience of becoming disabled at age 11 profoundly shapes his practice, which spans sculpture, digital painting, augmented and virtual reality. Drawing inspiration from 1970s comics, TV shows, and seaside arcades, his psychedelic palette and playful style are used to tell deeply personal and political stories.

A recipient of the Adam Reynolds Award, Wilsher-Mills has exhibited internationally, including at the 2024 Venice Biennale and the Wellcome Collection, and won Best Exhibition at the 2025 Museum & Heritage Awards for Are We There Yet? at Ferens Gallery, Hull. You can also read more on his brand-new roadway section in this year’s Blackpool Illuminations display.