writer + editor | she/her

Àjọkẹ́ Bọ́dúndé is a Nigerian writer and editor living in London. Her background in Law and Gender Studies deeply informs her storytelling, enabling her to critically engage in conversations around gender, power, societal structures, and exclusion through poetry.

Her work explores the experiences of women, their complex and multigenerational relationships with one another, and the patriarchy. In 2017, her poem ‘Girl’ was published in Aké Review. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Merky Books New Writers’ Prize.

sound artist, composer + poet | she/her

South London-born sound artist, composer, poet and researcher, Cecilia Morgan (Cil), utilises electronic music and vocal techniques to express ideas, both as part of her solo project and through collaborations with artists from various disciplines including but not limited to music, film, movement and sculpture.

As part of her solo project, Cil has been developing her live set which combines spoken and sung poetry with live electronics and collaborative improvisation with musicians Marysia Osu, Lorenz Okello-Osengor and Lluís Domènech Plana, playing opening sets for the likes of Moses Boyd. Juniper, a motion-reactive electronic instrument that Cil built, is a tool she uses live to manipulate sounds, from her voice, to synthesis, to other live instrumentalists.

Recently, Cil has had the opportunity to work on commissions for prestigious clients such as Tate Britain and independent arts organisation CASA, among others, showcasing her versatility within the arts.

writer, facilitator + performance artist | she/her

Chloe AyoDeji Filani works with poetry and performance, informed by Black Feminism, as well as being a public speaker and workshop facilitator. Her artistic practice/poetry is in dialogue with her lived experience of being a Black trans woman, and the broader themes of identity of power structures and finding hope in the imagination and through storytelling.

As a poet and movement artist, Chloe has performed at venues including Somerset House, ICA, HOME by Ronan McKenzie, the V&A, UAL and at Women of the World (WOW) festival with UK BLACK LIVES MATTER. She has also performed at and curated an art and music event for Black women– cis, trans and queer–called ‘Swaying Feels wit Blk Sirens’.

writer, arts producer + facilitator | she/her

Desree is an award-winning spoken word artist, writer and facilitator based in London and Slough. Desree’s work explores intersectionality, justice and social commentary.

Desree is currently Artist in Residence for poetry collective EMPOWORD, was Poet In Residence for Glastonbury Festival 2022, and has featured across the UK and internationally, including Sofar Sounds, Royal Albert Hall and Bowery Poetry - New York.

As an arts producer, she has worked for Word UP!, Word of Mouth London, and Empoword, curating live events, festivals and visual media, booking acts from around the world.

Following the sell-out of her first self-published pamphlet I Find My Strength In Simple Things (2017), Burning Eye Books published the pamphlet in May 2021.

she/her, they/them

Diz Amberber was born and raised on Gadigal Land, and currently lives and loves in London. She writes and makes sounds about water, the digital, and the future.

She has had work published by The School for Poetic Computation, No More Poetry, and Runway Journal among others. She is currently working on an ongoing text and audio project, 13TH MONTH OF SUNSHINE, which imagines an east African techno-future.

Diz is into Toni Morrison, heist movies, and dream journalling. You can usually find her blissing out in the nearest patch of the sun.

actor + poet | he/him

Eliezer Gore is a Zimbabwean-born artist raised in South-East London.

As a writer, he has participated in renowned courses such as Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab and the Royal Court Theatre’s Young Agitators programme. He was also an actor with the National Youth Theatre and their Playing Up strand.

The work he aims to create is always questioning the typical gazes we are told to look through. He believes art should celebrate individual experiences to strengthen communities and how we can better relate to each other.

she/her

IMAGE + BIO INCOMING

artist + creative producer | they/them

naya (spelled lowercase) is an Afroqueer multimedia artist and producer from North London. Primarily using moving image and prose, their art seeks to create collages of work that trouble narrative forms, distort time and intensify confusion.

Currently a Producer at the Black-led venue Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham, their practice focuses on enabling cross-art form productions, prioritising accessibility and amplifying Black, queer, disabled and neuro-exapansive artists. They have previously worked at venues including Mountview, Theatre Peckham & Southbank Centre.

writer, broadcaster + journalist | he/him

Peter deGraft-Johnson is The Repeat Beat Poet, a Ghanaian-British writer, broadcaster, and journalist. His debut pamphlet, 'A Testament To Life And Death' was released in 2022.

Born in the birthplace of radio, Chelmsford, to Ghanaian parents, Peter initially found his creativity amidst a blend of ecstatic pentecostal christian worship, the introspective & radical stillness of quaker reflection, indie rock's everyday storytelling, the pure improvised expressions of jazz, and the lyrical prowess of rap music.

His poetry has been published by Penguin, commissioned by Amnesty International, and exhibited by The U.N during COP26. He has been a writer-in-residence at The Library Of Africa & The African Diaspora in Accra, Ghana, and is a graduate of the Obsidian Foundation for African Poets.

Peter is the co-founder of Hip Hop & Poetry night Pen-Ting, showrunner of the multi-award nominated interview show the Lunary Poetry Podcast, and appears monthly on Soho Radio.

actor, theatre director, facilitator | she/her

Rebekah is an actor, director, facilitator, baby writer, (babygirl).

Some theatre Rebekah has made: directing the award-winning Carnival epic J’OUVERT by Yasmin Joseph at Theatre503 and in the West End, and appeared in hit plays including NINE NIGHT (National Theatre; Trafalgar Studios), ROMEO AND JULIET (Globe), WHITEWASH (Soho Theatre), THE HOST (National Youth Theatre) and SCENES WITH GIRLS (Royal Court Theatre).

Some things on screen: Reggie Yates' feature film love letter to garage and late 90s raving in London, PIRATES, and BAFTA-winning second series of queer Welsh drama IN MY SKIN (BBC). And currently in development on first feature film as director.

Creating towards joy, always.

writer + archivist | she/her

Rhoda Adum Boateng is a poet, archivist and cook based in South London. Her work plays with forms of memory and sense-making outside of the limits of nation state.

She blogs under the moniker ‘trusting mechanics’ writing about maintenance, food, archival entanglements & spiralling.

Rhoda is in the current cohort of the Griot’s Well Poetry Development Programme and works as Project Archivist for the McKenzie Heritage Picture Archive at Black Cultural Archives, a large-scale collection of Black and Asian photography. She was a recent recipient of the SET Studio Prize, a free studio programme for artists.

quasi-disciplinary artist | he/him

Theophina, [φ], (he/him) is a violet winter tree. He is a monochromatic lilaphile who grows poetry (periwinkle), music (mauve), writing (wysteria), dancing (damson) and amethyst (art) for himself and his community.

Theophina’s community describes him as, 'generative and bright and that brightness is radiated in berry-tones across textures across hills and valleys; a road towards the empowerment of others knowing themselves and community,’ and, ‘quasi-disciplinary.’ Theophina’s periwinkle is published on the walls and altars of his community and with his gardeners. He aims for his periwinkle to be published with people rather than in publications or for accolades or institution.

The themes and outcomes of his harvests have been described as the, ‘excavation of an internal world,’ which contains, ‘radical self-compassion; the type of self-compassion that dismantles things.’

He is a violet wavelength for onyx, a radical indie publication for Black poets, artists and writers.

writer + theatre director | they/them

Udoka Maya Okonkwo is a writer, essayist and director based in SE London. Their writing focuses on horror and speculative fiction, blending anthropology, ecology and liberation theologies to build queer worlds.

Their debut play, The Rot, premiered at The Ugly Duck in 2019. They have assistant directed for the National Youth Theatre and are an associate artist with Bold Mellon Collective.