Alistair Charles Wilkinson is a Creative Director working at the intersection of football and art – using the world’s game as a platform for bold, co-created cultural production. His work spans live performance, immersive environments, visual art, heritage, screen, sound, gaming, community storytelling, and public space interventions.

 

He is the Director of Life’s a Pitch Projects (LAPP) – a creative studio generating artistic and social responses to football, in collaboration with clubs, players, fans, brands and organisations across all levels of the game. LAPP’s mission is to use football’s emotional power to ignite imagination, amplify unheard voices, and build new cultural infrastructures rooted in care, play and access.

He is also part of the 2026 Sports Industry NextGEN cohort – a programme recognising future leaders shaping the sport sector through innovation, values, and impact.

 

Alistair is currently undertaking a DYCP project with Arts Council England exploring how football can function as a site for artistic inquiry – including questions around football as creative methodology, the aesthetics of fandom, the politics of play, and models of club-embedded co-creation. This sits alongside him serving on the English Schools’ FA Inclusion Advisory Network, advising on inclusive strategy across grassroots football and education, and his governance work as a Trustee at London Friend and Board Member for Chelsea FC’s Disabled Supporters Association. He is also the Senior Producer for OftheJackel, and a longtime Associate Artist of the National Youth Theatre.

 

In 2023, Alistair was honoured to become the first ever Creative Lead at the National Football Museum, where he delivered a radical new strand of programming at the crossroads of football, community and creativity. Previously, he was Head of Artist Development at The Old Vic, and in 2022, led all talent development for Punchdrunk, supporting the launch of The Burnt City. In 2017, he founded WoLab, a working laboratory for artists, which over seven years supported more than 500 creatives to develop themselves and their work. 

 

Alistair also works regularly as a Wellbeing Practitioner, Access Worker, Dramaturg, Reader, and Fundraiser – having raised over £18m in public and private funding for the arts. His work now focuses on building creative infrastructures within football that are driven by care, collaboration, and cultural imagination.