Introducing the Liberty 2025 R&D Artists

Liberty aims to spotlight and celebrate the very best of d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists in London as part of a joyful, radically inclusive festival where everyone is welcome. In 2025, Wandsworth Council will deliver Liberty as part of our London Borough of Culture year. 

In December 2024, Welcome to Wandsworth put out an open call for d/Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists, producers and creatives to apply for the Liberty R&D Grant programme, to undertake research and development for new arts new and accessible work with potential to be presented at Liberty 2025, taking place 26—28 September.

We were especially keen to fund proposals which take a thoughtful or innovative approach to accessibility, advocate for disabled people's rights, attract new audiences to disability arts, and increase opportunities for those that might not ordinarily take part.

Discover the incredible artists who have recieved funding through the Liberty R&D Grants programme:

Aisha Mirza 

Aisha Mirza is a queer Pakistani/Egyptian writer, dj, artist and community organiser living between New York and East London, where they live on a boat. Aisha has recieved a microgrant to photograph and interview marginalised boaters, building on their skills as a photographer.

The Baked Bean Charity

The Baked Bean Charity is an organisation for people with learning disabilities, based in Wandsworth. Their work is about championing people with learning disabilities through creative education programmes that push boundaries, empower lives and create a world where every individual can thrive. 

They've recieved funding to collaborate with local service providers and disabled artists to explore lived experience through arts-based workshops. These workshops will provide a platform for participants to share their journeys and reflect on what it means to be a disabled artist.

Claude Graham & Jasmine Shigemura Lee

Claude Graham is a writer, producer and workshop facilitator based in South London. She has a passion for connecting LGBTQIA+ folks with their queer heritage through art, literature and academia. Claude holds an MA in Gender, Society and Representation from UCL, with a focus on the history of sexuality and subcultural sociology.

In collaboration with Jasmine Shigemura Lee, Claude plans to develop and deliver a series of participatory arts and history workshops at Balham Library for isolated LGBTQIA+ young people experiencing poor mental health, aged 14 – 25. The workshops will explore lesbian and transmasculine history in Britain (particularly London), followed by a chance to create artistic works inspired by these histories. 

Edie Evans

Edie Evans’ practice explores neurodivergent identity through place, connection, and community, extending beyond traditional material-based approaches into conceptual research. She investigates the relationship between neurodiversity and nature, focusing on the tension between isolation and connection within both ecosystems and human environments. She holds an MFA from Bath Spa University and a BA (Hons) from Central Saint Martins and is the 2024–2025 recipient of the Freelands Studio Fellowship.

Edie has recieved a microgrant to hold clay-based workshops, to support the future development of AR and VR approaches to working wth clay.

Fatima Niemogha

Fatima Niemogha, who is Deaf, is an artist from London. Working in theatre and musical theatre, she lends vocals in roles, with signed-songs: Pinocchio (Hull Truck Theatre); Antigone (Storyhouse, Chester). She also writes and produces original songs with an EP underway. Harmonising vocals with sign language giving rise to Signs Reverberate; her latest, collaborative project in R&D, celebrating and speaking to artistic inclusion within live music entertainment. 

Signs Reverberate is a Deaf-led research and development project exploring the music-making process through creative accessibility and inclusion. Deaf artists and musicians will explore the musicality of sign language in harmony with vocal expression.

Fée Uhssi

Fée Uhssi, a Wandsworth-based Franco-Nigerian artist, pioneers Fashion Healing in "Now You See Us" workshops, illuminating disability visibility. Living with an autoimmune disease and ADHD, she crafts colour-infused wearable art, celebrating body positivity. Fée's commitment to inclusivity extends beyond her creations; she fosters spaces for dialogue and self-discovery, inviting participants to explore their own relationship with colour and visibility. Her vibrant workshops are a testament to her belief that art can be a powerful catalyst for healing and social change.

Fée has been awarded a microgrant to deliver two workshops that focus on building collaborative relationships with Wandsworth residents, and exploring how they could be made accessible to people with ‘invisible disabilities’ such as chronic pain, fatigue, and neurodivergence but who also have ‘visible disabilities’ e.g. restricted physical movement, being blind or visually impaired, or being Deaf.

Katrina Woolley / Big Mind Theatre

Katrina is a chronically ill producer and facilitator, working in the intersection between performance and wellbeing. She founded Big Mind Theatre and Sightlines Performance and Wellbeing Festival, has worked as a producer for Utopia Theatre and MAYA Productions, and was formerly Head of Programming at Bedlam Fringe. She has also worked for the mental health charity, Young Minds, since 2020.

Katrina's microgrant will support her to deliver two artrist workshops, helping to reate, shape, and refine her vision for an immersive exhibition.

leon clowes

leon clowes is an artist of sonics, stories and socials having nuanced exchanges about the hidden and the haunted. As an artist researcher his commissions have included work with BBC Radio 4, SPILL, Deptford X, Frieze and SUPERNORMAL festivals. He is a co-founder of the Addiction Recovery Arts Network. As a PhD candidate at London College of Music, leon is conducting research into self-compassionate autoethnographic grief-inspired performance practice. leon is both a Multitrack Fellow and Open School East Associate Artist.

leon's R&D grant will support the development of The Alcoholic’s Tarot, a socially curious performance that challenges societal attitudes towards addiction by framing it as a disability.

Liz Crow/Roaring Girl Productions

Liz Crow is an artist-activist-researcher, involved in the disability arts movement since the 1980s & Director of Roaring Girl Productions since its inception in 1999. Her creative work spans performance, film, audio and text, pioneering new approaches to audience access and bringing to light marginalised and misrepresented stories through themes of identity, resistance, survival and hope.

Liz's R&D microgrant will allow her to explore the intersection of climate change and disability through performance actions in natural landscapes across the UK.

Mo Korede / Imagiphoria Productions 

Imagiphoria Productions aim to create spaces for people to come together and understand experiences that differ from their own. Through their shows, workshops and events, they start conversations and create space for you to do the same.

The grant will support Imagiphoria Productions to create an immersive experience which blends live performance with digital storytelling, focusing on the complexities of friendships and societal pressures.

Nick McKerrow & Anjali Dance Company

Nick is a learning-disabled LGBTQ+ artist with over 20 years of professional dance experience. A touring dancer with Anjali Dance Company, he also performs internationally as Nikita Gold with Drag Syndrome. In 2017, he became the first learning-disabled artist featured in The Stage and has since appeared in British Vogue.

In 2024, Nick began his choreographic journey, supported by Arts Council and FABRIC. His work takes an autobiographical approach, exploring themes of mental health, belonging, freedom of choice, and identity. Through his art, he challenges perceptions and proves that disability is no barrier to creative excellence.

Anjali Dance Company has championed learning-disabled artists for over 30 years, creating professional opportunities in dance. As Nick’s Producing Partner, Anjali supports his creative ambitions and collaborates to expand audiences for disabled-led work.

Rachel Gadsden & PostHuman Performance Collective

Rachel Gadsden is a disabled British visual and performance artist and disability culture activist who exhibits and performs her artwork nationally and internationally, with the object of developing cross-cultural dialogues considering universal notions of humanity. 

Rachel is a multi-award-winning artist, and her artworks are represented in private and major art collections across the Globe. Rachel received the CRIPtic Arts Breakthrough Award 2024, which culminated in her presenting PostHuman a ‘live’ art and sound performance in collaboration with Freddie Meyers and sign language performer Anna Kitson in November 2024.

Rachel will use the Liberty R&D Grant to enhance the PostHuman performance by integrating disability access, and creating immersive sensory experiences for mainstream and disabled audiences. Her work will include R&D rehearsals with deaf/blind consultants to incorporate digital animation and sensory layers.

Sound Minds / Film Pro CIC

Sound Minds is a user led organisation channelling the power of creativity and peer support to improve the lives of people living with lived experience of mental ill health. Their Battersea studios house a creative community with music rehearsal, tuition, recording, filmmaking, a visual art studio, and a choir.

Sound Minds will use their grant for an R&D project, working towards a music and film installation.

The Arty Crafty Crescent Club

The Arty-Crafty Crescent Club is a creative community initiative led by Tiah Algalarrondo, an autistic artist with ADHD. They offer inclusive, hands-on arts and crafts workshops, fostering creativity, connection, and well-being. Based in Wandsworth, they collaborate with libraries, community hubs, and arts centers to make creativity accessible. 

Tiah will create a participatory art space where neurodivergent individuals can express their unique perspectives on how the world could better embrace neurodiversity. The project will focus on textile art as a medium for storytelling and advocacy, enabling participants to share their experiences and aspirations through tactile, sensory-friendly creations. Workshops will guide participants in crafting textile pieces that reflect their personal views, emotions, and messages for a more neurodiversity-friendly world. The final pieces will be curated into a collaborative installation to showcase the richness and diversity of neurodivergent voices.

Urszula Kucharczyk

Urszula Kucharczyk is a Polish playwright based in London. She writes about social injustice, dysfunctional families, disabilities, mental health, oppression, the working class, migration, politics, passion and misogamy in a modern world. She is the author of the plays: Sponges and Farmer and is working on a third play, My sweet Diego.

Urszula will use her microgrant to further develop her play, My sweet Diego, the story of a British-Polish teen, Sara, who battles depression and fights to protect her Spanish boyfriend, Diego, in a xenophobic, hostile Britain. 

WeJam

WeJam Foundation transforms disadvantaged young lives through rock music, reaching those in areas of deprivation and with special educational needs and disabilities. Their mission is to ensure everybody can access the benefits music brings - regardless of ability or socioeconomic status. Their workshops teach the fundamentals of music and contribute to improved self-confidence and mental wellbeing.

WeJam's microgrant will fund them to develop an inclusive musical workshop using adaptive technology, allowing people of all abilities to form a rock band.

We Are Sensoria / Saskia Horton

Sensoria is an arts access initiative creating space to educate, express and exchange for disabled, chronically ill and neurodiverse communities in dance and music.

Sensoria's Chronically Ch(ILL) Sessions are an online Community Space hosted once a month to support majority housebound, bedbound, chronically ill and chronically chill people. The company will use their participatory R&D funding to investigate what this space means to them, and for the chronically ill online community who participates, how they can best support each other in building solidarity networks and interdependencies as disabled artists, co-creators and collaborators.

Preya Chauhan & Sheree Robinson

Preya Chauhan & Sheree Robinson will work with struggling parents, who are supported by HomeStart Wandsworth in the Paradise Cooperative Gardens, to explore ideas of crafting in nature to enhance wellbeing.

Paradise Cooperative is an outdoor growing and education space in Wandsworth.