Chanje Kunda

Chanje Kunda is a poet, performance artist and film maker. Her work explores 21st century life and aims to use art as a tool to transform lives, shift consciousness and bring joy to an otherwise serious and stressful modern existence. She predominately works as a solo artist creating content across the literary, theatre, live art and film sectors. She has presented work nationally and internationally, including at the Southbank Centre, the National Arts Festival of South Africa and the Harare International Festival of Arts in Zimbabwe. Solo theatre productions to date are Blue Black Sister (The Royal Exchange Theatre, 2009), Amsterdam (Contact, 2014), Superposition (The Lowry, 2017) and Plant Fetish (HOME, 2019). Other international representation includes selection by the British Council for IETM conferences in Romania (2017) and Croatia (2019). 2020 short films include Kintsugi Gold for DaDaFest, Toilet Roll Gate Retrospective for MIF and Victory is Yours for the Imperial War Museum.

Cherylee Houston

Cherylee Houston has played Izzy Armstrong in Coronation Street for the last thirteen years. She has had six seasons of Tinsel Girl, her memoir-based plays on BBC Radio 4. She is the founder of TripleC who run The Disabled Artists Networking Community (DANC) with over 1600 deaf, disabled and/or neurodivergent creatives. TripleC won the Bafta Special Award in 2022 at The Craft Awards for their work in disability and television. TripleC is dedicated to changing the way disabled people are included in and access the arts, ensuring the way we are reflected in the media impacts on the way disabled people are treated in society. Cherylee was awarded the Achievement of The Year Award at the Women in Film and Television Awards 2019 and more recently The Doubleday Award. Cherylee received an MBE in the New Year Honours List 2022 for services to disabled people and drama.

Website / Instagram / Twitter

Chris Alton

Chris Alton is an artist and curator, based in Manchester. His practice spans a range of media and approaches including socially engaged projects, video essays, textile banners and publications. In 2012, he founded English Disco Lovers (EDL), an anti-fascist, pro-disco group. Other projects include Adam Speaks (With New Mouths) (2017), a neoclassical treehouse commissioned by the National Trust; What Mortals Henceforth Shall Our Power Adore (2020), a video essay that frames the trident as a symbol of colonial intent; and Grief Must Be Love with Nowhere to Go' (2021–present), an ongoing exploration of grief and language in collaboration with Emily Simpson. Each project addresses an array of interconnected social, political, economic and environmental concerns. He is also an active member of the Quaker community and a skateboarder.

Website / Instagram

Joshua Inyang (Space Afrika)

Joshua Inyang is a music producer, curator, international touring artist and radio host from Manchester performing under the alias of Space Afrika, working predominantly in the field of contemporary electronic music encompassing UK dance, ambient, alternative, trip-hop, pop, modern classical and experimental. Hinting at the maverick British spirit of Tricky, Burial and Dean Blunt, his work to date has received international acclaim from outlets such as Pitchfork, The Guardian, Libération and editorial placements in The Guardian, Resident Advisor, The Quietus, Mojo and Bandcamp as well as received heavy editorial features in respectable media outlets worldwide.

In 2021, the duo were nominated twice by DJ Mag for Best Live Act and Best Album and selected as The 15 Top Live Acts Of The Year 2022 by Mixmag, earned national radio play on BBC Radio 1 including Benji B, Gilles Peterson and Mary Anne Hobbs, and produced guest mixes on BBC Radio 1, BBC R6 and BBC 3’s Late Junction. In the US, continued chart support from five stations at NACC Top 200, as well as key spins from WFMU, SiriusXMU and KXCkI. In June 2020, they self-released their mixtape hybtwibt? (have you been through what I’ve been through?), generating over £12,500 for various black lives matter associated charities in a two-week period. This was a viral moment in terms of reach, exposure and strength of message. To this day, the release is recommended against almost any electronic release on Bandcamp. In spring 2021, we released Untitled (To Describe You) – a collaboration with photographer, filmmaker and poet Tibyan Mahawah Sanoh, generating what has been described as ‘a living, breathing study of the duo's Northern working-class Black British reality’. In January 2021, signing to Dais Records, they released their second album to critical acclaim. The duo now tour frequently, performing at art institutions, clubs, and festivals across Europe and overseas including the Barbican, MeeFactory, HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Gladstone Gallery NYC, Lafayette Anticipations, Berghain and more.

Nasima Begum

Nasima Begum (aka Nasima Bee on stage) is a performance poet, producer, actor and creative practitioner. She’s a trustee for Manchester’s Young Identity – a collective of poets, dancers and musicians. Nasima uses art as a means of activism and her work is an exploration of the everyday through a personal lens that connects to its audience. Nasima writes about loss, the feminine and spirituality. Nasima champions community and is also the coordinator of Manchester-based charity Ananna – Manchester Bangladeshi Women’s Organisation (MBWO), which supports marginalised women through activities, volunteering opportunities and local policy change. Nasima is also a newly appointed patron for Contact theatre.

Nasima’s most notable works include performances with the Manchester Literature Festival, British Council’s BritLitBerlin conference and BBC’s Contains Strong Language. She has taught poetry with young people nationally and internationally through various projects. Nasima was one of five Greater Manchester recipients of the Jerwood Creative Fellowship with Manchester International Festival 2019 in which she observed ANU Productions The Anvil and was commissioned to write and record poetry for an installation piece as part of this. Most recently, she worked on an audio commission with New Creatives North entitled Salt (2021). This work is funded by BBC Arts and Arts Council England. Nasima has also released her first solo R & D in short film form titled fatihah – a poetic exploration of loss and losing as part of HOME’s Push Festival 2022. Nasima is currently researching and developing her first script, exploring what it means to be a British Muslim woman in the current political climate with the support of Factory International.

Vicky Clarke

Vicky Clarke is a sound and electronic media artist from Manchester, working with sound sculpture, DIY electronics and human-machine system. She explores our relationship to technology through sonic materiality, considering themes of human agency in autonomous systems, post-industrialisation, electrical phenomena and ritual, and the techno-emotional states we experience through these interactions. Winner of the Oram Award 2020 for innovation in music technology, her work takes the form of composition and live AV performance, DIY machines & sculpture, digital art and research.

For the past two years, she has been artist in residence at NOVARS – The University of Manchester, exploring the collision of musique concrete and machine learning in collaboration with PRiSM, Royal Northern College of Music, considering how neural networks and concrete materials can project future sonic realities. Her live AV piece AURA MACHINE premiered on the Fact Magazine Patch Notes series and was performed at the Science and Industry Museum. This area of specialism builds on her AI research trip to St Petersburg as selected artist for British Council’s UK-RUSSIA Year of Music. She is currently developing this work as a new live performance system, working with gestural sensors as part of a Cyborg Soloists commission. Vicky’s debut album SLEEPSTATES was released in 2022, described by Electronic Sound as a ‘stunning collection’ and a ‘glitchy experimental techno jerker’ by Boomkat. It was accompanied by net-art piece SLEEEPSTATES.NET. She has performed/exhibited at MUTEK, CTM, the National Science and Media Museum and Somerset House.

Website / Instagram / Twitter

Joshie Harriette

Joshie Harriette is a dance and light creative. As an independent artist, Joshie choreographs exclusively with lights. Fascinated with the physicality, musicality and emotionality lights can embody. To much acclaim, Joshie created his version of The Rite of Spring The Lite of Spring choreographed solely with light, premiering at The Place as part of Resolution Dance Festival.

As a dancer, they have worked with choreographers: Michael Clark, Sir Richard Alston, Sir Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Ballet Black, Jose Agudo, Adam Linder and Christopher Williams. He has also modelled for Alexander McQueen, Diesel, Gucci, ASOS, COS, DQquared & BBC Arts.

As a self taught lighting designer, he has collaborated with Drew McOnie, Julia Cheng, Anthea Hamilton, Mark Baldwin OBE, Gary Clarke, Julie Cunningham, Sonny Nwachukwu, Clod Emsemble, Jose Agudo, Xnthony, Scarabeus Aerial Theatre, Magnus Westwell & Richard Chappell. Joshie is also resident lighting artist for queer club night's Mind Ur Head & Lazarus.

Joshie grew up in St Helens, being introduced to the arts through Elizabeth Hill School of Dance and Drama. Furthering his dance training at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, receiving a First Class Honours Degree. They also have a masters in Light in Performance with Rose Bruford.

Website

Yandass Ndlovu

Yandass Ndlovu is Founder and Artistic Director of I M Pact collective.

Movement directing and choreographing credits include Pretty Shitty love (Theatre Clwyd), Bloody Elle, Astronauts, [M]others-Co:lab (Royal Exchange Theatre), Everything All Of The Time (Contact Theatre), The Walk: Little Amal (Manchester International Festival and Good Chance Theatre), VUKA (MCR Museum), Cryptomnesia (Future Ventures and ACE), See Me After (PUSH-HOME theatre), and Yandass.mov (Channel 4, Random Acts).

Acting credits include Electric Rosary, Macbeth, Our Town, Nothing (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Birth: Orchid & Syria (World Health Organisation, Geneva), Negging (Old Vic Theatre), Dead Certain (Hopemill Theatre) and Jubilee (Lyric Hammersmith).

Dance credits include Nike Air Shimmer (Size?), Alphabus (Manchester International Festival), FlexN Manchester (Old Granada Studios), Flexn Young Identity (Contact Theatre), Boy BlueElevate (HOME), Festival Number 6 (Portmeirion) and Through The Eye by Rachel Chinouriri.

Short film and television credits include Icaria (Nowness and MIF), Yandass.mov (Random Acts, Channel 4), The X Factor (dancer ITV), Run Boy Run and Yandass.mov (Random Acts, Channel 4).

Seren Corrigan

Seren Corrigan is a Manchester-based performance artist and maker/director, who makes interdisciplinary, predominately movement-based work. They use experience and training in Contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre (BA Hons Circomedia, Bristol) to expand the possibilities of space and gravity in performance. They work closely with music and musicians, celebrating that of the African diaspora from Calypso to Grime. They use culture to enrich their works, being drawn to the bold and beautiful characters they meet and have known –specifically among the marginalised or alternative communities they connect with. They are a founding member of NIAMOS Radical Arts centre in Hulme, working with many arts collectives and projects that have come out of the historic theatre. They enjoy creating innovative events, merging contrasting cultural styles and performance techniques to appeal to broader audiences. They are currently working on a project exploring Black feminist hauntology, Afrofuturism and mysticism in club culture, following on from their MA contemporary performance research at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Riley Bramley-Dymond

Riley Bramley-Dymond is a writer and director based in the north of England. In 2016, Riley was accepted into the Writing Squad, an organisation that funded his 2017 short film Ill-Fitting Shoes, and co-commissioned a 2017 short film with Hull City of Culture. His short film Profit was commissioned by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation. It went on screen at Film Hub North and BFI Network’s Northern Exposure event in March 2019, after which Riley went on to develop a short script with BFI Network's 2019 script lab. In 2022, he was accepted on to We Are Parable and Channel 4’s mentorship scheme Momentum. In the same year, he wrote and directed two short films: A Safe Place, The Walk Home premiered at Manchester Film Festival 2023and On Rest and Movement, an ambitious commission for the Hallé Orchestra.

Instagram / Twitter / Vimeo

Saf Elsenossi

Saf Elsenossi (SAF-S2E) is a Young Identity poet, performance artist and rapper based in Manchester. He has performed nationally and internationally. He is one of six finalists of BBC 1Xtra's, BBC Asian Network's and BBC Contain Strong Language's Words First talent development scheme and performed at BBC Contains Strong Language (2019). Saf has been part of Contact Young Company and as assistant director for Saturnalia. Saf's poetry is published in No Disclaimers: Volume One, Working from Home, Ecosystems of Fury and Use Words First. Manchester International Festival (MIF) commissioned him as part of their MIF Sounds initiative, supporting Saf to develop his music project and release an LP Ink Is Blood, which was featured at MIF21. His writing primarily explores themes of morality, mortality, divinity and identity.

Instagram / Twitter

Simon Jones

Simon Jones is a Manchester-based photography and moving image artist, who has received several national and international awards and prizes. Along with the continuing development and practice of personal projects, Simon is a contributor to Millennium Images, who are renowned through the world as a leading image library with a collection at the cutting edge of contemporary photography. Simon is regularly commissioned for socially engaged projects with communities across the country, involving animation and music outcomes. This work is within his role as part of the creative collective Harp And A Monkey, who in their own right as a folk and storytelling act, have toured extensively, received four star reviews in The Guardian and The Telegraph, and performed live on shows such as BBC Radio 2 Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe and Clare Balding's BBC Radio 2 show Good Morning Sun.