Kedisha Coakley
artistKedisha Coakley is a London-born, Sheffield-based artist. Her practice spans sculpture, photography, and printmaking, predominantly casting in bronze, through which she interrogates Black histories and experiences. Investigating the overlooked, she remixes aesthetics, techniques, and cultural refences throughout her work.
Process, hybridity, and materiality are important strands of her practice. Coakley’s work begins as a personal investigation of self, childhood memories and ritualistic practices in the lives of Black communities, and what they signify universally in the world. Making visible suppressed or express meaning by looking hard at what exists in the world of cultural objects, exploring the unconscious of culture, maintaining the integrity of their origins.
Kedisha is one of five artists in the Freelands Foundation artist development programme. Other achievements include; Finalist in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2021; And the recipient of the Yorkshire Graduate Award 2020. Recent exhibitions include Dutch Flower Painting: Exploring Art in Bloom, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield. Mi waan go a country go look Mango, Bloc Projects, Sheffield. Hair: Untold Stories, Weston Park Museum, Sheffield. Dark Echoes, Site Gallery, Sheffield. Super Natural, Eden Project, Cornwall. In the Beginning, The Box at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
Explore more
Najma Heybe
Najma Heybe is a creative artist from Sheffield. Her passion for writing and poetry is driven by a deep desire to express herself and connect with others through her writing.
Wemmy Ogunyankin
I am a visual anthropologist/ethnographer who specialises in photography, documentary and poetry. My work concerns a deep exploration of the lived experiences of minoritised and underrepresented groups. As a Black woman, I look to challenge the co-opting of storytelling, to uncover hidden stories, do grassroots work with local communities, decolonise the lens, and in turn contribute to intersectional feminist creative practice.
Rosa Cisneros
Rosamaria Cisneros is a dancer, choreographer, dance historian, critic, Roma scholar, sociologist, flamenco historian and peace activist who graduated from UW- Madison and went on to complete her MA in Dance History & Criticism from UNM-Albuquerque. Her PhD in Sociology focused on Roma women, intersectionality, dialogic feminism and communicative methodologies. At the moment based in the UK, she is an artist- researcher at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research. She is also an independent artist, dancer, curator and teacher who has organised various festivals and exhibitions. Her dance films have screened in the UK, US, Colombia, Mexico, Greece, Cyprus and Germany and her latest documentary won best of the UK in 2016.
