Rosetta’s Artist Accelerator programme looks to kickstart the careers of local emerging artists. Over the past two years, we have supported 11 artists. For this latest cohort, we have selected five new artists, providing them with access to networks, know-how, funded opportunities for public engagement and display of work, as well as studio space and mentoring sessions with experienced professionals, all to help develop their socially engaged practices in the local community.
Kierra Richardson
Kierra Richardson is a London-based photographer and visual storyteller exploring themes of identity, womanhood, culture, community, and belonging. Working with both digital and analogue formats, her artistic practice aims to spark dialogue and contribute to the broader conversation about life’s interconnectedness.
As a member of the Rosetta Arts Artist Accelerator, a year-long professional development programme, Kierra is developing Auntie Tales. This project focuses on minority women who play pivotal roles in familial and community development yet often go unrecognised. By incorporating archives and personal narratives, Kierra highlights these women’s contributions and shares their wisdom.
Experienced in documentary, street, and event photography, Kierra is available for commissioned work and can be contacted at krichpics@gmail.com.
Lewis Greener
Lewis is a facilitator, youth worker and photographer. Originally from the North-East of England, Lewis has been living in East London for the last decade. A member of the Gate Darkroom Co-operative and Print Collective based out of TURF projects, he’s interested in grassroots and DIY movements, non-formal education, the peripheries of space, the way cultures mutate to different contexts and the way people adapt, interpret and take ownership of their surroundings.
Alongside photography he has worked with soundscapes, oral histories, text, video and printmaking.
In 2023, Lewis exhibited a solo show at Southwark Park Galleries titled You throw shade on doorways, combining photography, alternatively processed Super 8 films, and manipulated field recordings.
He is currently focusing on making socially engaged work and attempting to make in a more collaborative and democratic way with members of his community and others in East London. Lewis has experience working with detached and centre-based youth projects, schools, charities and secure NHS units.
Instagram: @deep_northumbria
Sally Barton
Sally Barton is an artist and workshop facilitator. Originally from Sheffield, she is now based in East London and works out of her studio at OOF Gallery.
Her practice explores social and industrial history, using both public and personal archives to explore class, gender and labour. She works in photography, textiles, collage and sculpture.
Barton has made a body of work about the 1984-85 miners’ strike. She grew up with trade unionist grandparents and learnt about the strike through bedtime stories. She reimagines these industrial histories as fairy tales, making miners into fairies.
She often makes work about football culture and has recently been commissioned by Sky Sports to create a banner that reflects her hopes and dreams for her club, Sheffield Wednesday.
Through workshop facilitation, she is interested in how football can be used to engage young people in ideas of community and creativity. She recently designed football scarves with a primary school local to her studio in Tottenham.
Barton is also a Fine Art tutor for the University of the Arts London’s Outreach department, facilitating workshops on the Insights programme and for schools and colleges across London.
She has recently completed a photography commission with English Heritage and Photoworks, exploring and capturing the Nine Ladies Stone Circle in Derbyshire, researching folk traditions in England and facilitating workshops at primary schools in Sheffield and Derbyshire.
Instagram: @bartonmade
Website: sally-barton.com
Ioana Simion
Ioana Simion is an artist-educator and facilitator based in East London. She runs community workshops under the artistic identity of Artizine. Her socially-engaged practice explores the use of zine-making as a vehicle for encouraging individuals to share their stories, develop imaginative skills and practice wellbeing in a social setting.
Ioana’s practice centres the intuitive quality of play and participation to amplify community spaces where individuals receive support to expand on their lived-experience and document it through a creative, radical outlet.
When talking about her work, the artist explains, “My practice is based on zine-making which is inherently collaborative. Historically, the zine culture has emerged from a radical need for marginalised groups to organise and empower each other through sharing their stories. Through my workshops and extended art practice, I aim to facilitate these interactions and celebrate the multi-layered process of connecting and creating communities and cultures of meaning together.”
Recent projects include Full of Radical Potential, a 6-month creative community programme funded by the Foundation for Future London; schools programmes delivered at the Southbank Centre; a community youth group project at the Story Museum, Oxford; as well as a public programme at the Barbican Centre.
Instagram: @artizineuk
Cee Boulaqui
Cee Boulaqui is a Notting Hill Carnival designer whose practice seamlessly intertwines environmental science and art. Born in Newham, London, she leads her carnival band Vibrance Mas, making her one of the few female band leaders within the carnival world, fuelling her passion for diversity and inclusion.
With a degree in Environmental Sciences, Cee’s work seeks to tell an interconnected story of Carnival culture, environmental issues and social justice. Each costume is crafted out of recycled and sustainably sourced materials, infusing the designs with symbolism and meaning to spark conversations and inspire action. It is a celebration of the traditions of carnival, while focusing on tackling the issues of the climate crisis that especially threaten the nations from which carnival originates.
As well as being a creative director organising large public performances at carnivals to audiences in the thousands, Cee is passionate about including people in the process of making and has run workshops with youth clubs and colleges.
Her innovative designs have been featured in outlets such as the Guardian, the Daily Mail, Sky News, The Voice, and the Huffington Post. Cee has recently received sponsorship by the Trinidadian Ministry of Trade.
As a member of the Rosetta Arts Artist Accelerator programme, Cee will be looking to inspire people through her practice that marries environmental consciousness, design, and carnival cultural heritage in order to promote awareness and social justice.
Instagram: @Vibrancemas @the_cee_journey
Website: www.vibrancemas.com
