Jamaican–Haitian–British artist and curator Paula Ogun Hector founded Tapestry of Black Britons to honour the often-overlooked African Caribbean presence in Britain, from the Roman era to today. The project began with a woven dialogue between a Yoruba creation story and World War II histories, setting the foundation for an evolving, interdisciplinary, touring artwork. Blending research, digital innovation, heritage craft, and education, the Tapestry invites creatives, schools, universities, and researchers to engage with archives through making. By encouraging participation through needle, tablet, or pencil, it bridges gaps in historical knowledge and nurtures culturally connected, empowered communities.

https://www.tapestryofblackbritons.com/

https://www.instagram.com/tapestry_of_black_britons/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-ogun-hector-78b58019/

https://adeche.com/ https://www.instagram.com/alvin_kofi/

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Zak is a community-taught artist whose work draws on Southern textile traditions and repurposed fabrics. He practices an approach to design that is based in narrative and guided by intuition. He is especially drawn to preserving the stories of quilts and explores stories we tell ourselves about the past, present, and future in his work. His work has been featured in on the red carpet of the Met Gala, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as various magazines, websites, and galleries. His book THE WORLD NEEDS YOUR NEXT QUILT and the community he hosts, the QUILTY NOOK, connect and inspire quilters and makers all over the world.

http://www.zakfoster.com

Insta: zakfoster.quilts

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Content alert: This podcast includes reference to suicide

Abu Ansari is a performer and facilitator working in Chicago and London. He spent 20 years performing on Chicago stages and worked as a performance-based facilitator addressing a variety social issues. He co-founded Mango Riot Theatre in the UK, launching a program that engages youth in colonial history debates. While earning an MA in Applied Theatre, he explored loneliness and minority stress through participatory workshops for LGBTQ+ communities in London. His current project, The Other L Word, invites adults to share experiences of loneliness through performance, aiming to challenge societal structures that perpetuate isolation.

Weblink: www.mangoriot.org

Categories: Artists on the practice

Arts and Health

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Sofie Layton is an artist, researcher and facilitator who has worked nationally and internationally for over 30 years. Her most recent research practice explores the interface between artist, patient and clinical landscapes. Interweaving lived experience with remediated medical data, she examines how the human story is entangled with the medical. Previous commissions include installations ‘Bedside Manners’ (Evelina Children’s Hospital 2012) and ‘Making the Invisible Visible’ (Great Ormond Street Hospital 2015-2016) exhibited internationally. ‘The Heart of the Matter’ (2016-2018), a national touring exhibition funded by Wellcome and ACE, addressed the medical, experiential and poetic dimensions of the heart. In ‘Does AI Care?’ (2023), commissioned by the London Science Gallery, she worked alongside young adults in remission from cancer to probe AI’s role in contemporary medical care. Her PhD, funded by LAHP - London Arts and Humanities Partnership (AHRC), awarded in 2025, developed multiple methods of artistic remediation and translation of medical data. This was used to investigate the materialisation of pregnancy, culminating in the performative installation Loss is Mine and is Stored within this Body. She has since become a research associate on the Visual and Materials Lab which is part of the Discovery Research Platform for the Medical Humanities at Durham University (funded by the Wellcome Trust). Her current research practice extends her PhD work, further exploring the non-diagnostic use of medical data through workshops, artworks and performance.

http://www.sofielayton.co.uk

http://www.insidetheheart.org

@sofielayton

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James Holcombe is a filmmaker with decades of experience in photochemical film production. His practice merges a deep engagement with re-discovered historical, material and social processes of photochemical film production through single screen and expanded performance works. He is the owner of erehwon film. erehwon runs workshops and actively curates workshops, performances, screenings, residencies, and events through workshops and bespoke 1:1

https://www.erehwonfilm.uk/

Insta: erehwon_film

Italian-born Alberto Bona began his journey as a cartoonist before honing his craft as an actor in London. Fascinated by the expressive power of silent cinema, he has produced and filmed several short films and music videos using clockwork cameras. His work is distinguished by flamboyant characters inhabiting worlds that blur the line between the surreal and the oneiric.

Instagram: @arepofilms

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Hannah is an experienced cultural practitioner with over 20 years’ experience in the arts, education, public and private sectors. An innovative problem solver and entrepreneurial creative communicator. A strategic leader with a natural gift for working at all levels and across multiple and diverse stakeholders, with a phenomenal track record of working at the intersection of diversity, art and culture. As Head of Social Entrepreneur Support at UnLtd, Hannah led a team of exceptional people helping others to solve societies toughest challenges. Currently leading InCommon as CEO, Hannah is focussing on social connection across generations to create impactful communities.

In Common is a Charity connecting groups of young people with their older neighbours so they can share experiences, celebrate diffferences and learn from each other

https://incommon.org.uk/

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Chris Hellawell is the Director of the Edinburgh Tool Library

Chris has an educational background in environmental science, but began working in the charity sector 20 years ago. In 2014 he found a way to combine his dual passions of environmental and social justice by starting the first tool library in the UK, and since then it has grown to encompass multiple sites across Edinburgh, where carbon heavy DIY equipment is shared and treated as an asset for the whole community to access. From this starting point, other projects have blossomed, driven by the community around the libraries, and now include a cycle kitchen, Repair Cafe Edinburgh, a draught-busting initiative supporting people in fuel poverty, a programme of weekend volunteer builds, and an outreach programme that specifically targets individuals from groups often excluded from the workshop environment and the trades and making industries. Chris believes that sharing gives access, access gives opportunity, and opportunities can change lives.

http://www.edinburghtoollibrary.org.uk

https://www.instagram.com/edinburghtoollibrary/

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Sarah is Founding Director of Craftivist Collective and Gentle Protest. She is an award-winning activist, author and Ashoka Fellow. Born in Everton, the fourth most deprived ward in the UK. An Activism Manager at Oxfam GB before founding the global Craftivist Collective in 2009. Corbett calls her unique methodology ‘Gentle Protest’ and her work has helped change hearts, minds, policies and laws around the world. Collaborations include Save the Children, The Climate Coalition, Girlguiding, Helsinki Design Week, Tate, V&A, BBC, SkyArts and Secret Cinema amongst others. The Craftivist Collective Handbook was awarded best multimedia book of 2025 by the Creative Book Awards

http://www.craftivist-collective.com

http://www.gentleprotest.com Instagram

Insta: @Craftivists & @Sarahpcorbett

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