Artist in Residence 2025
Symoné was our very first 2025 artist in residence!
Come and see their video work in our Shopfront Gallery
8th-16th March 10am - midnight
What
did
you do?
*BODIES IN SPACE / DIGITAL v PHYSICAL SPACE / DIGITAL FLESH / CREATING A DESIRE TO ESCAPE…*
During my residency at Afri-Co-Lab I took some time to focus on my digital art and alternative game making practice. That’s the short summary, but in practice that for me was thinking/researching/writing about physical spatial design, videogame level design and creating a personal toolkit I could take away and use when working on projects.
I created x short installation videos constructed from game scenes and old footage on my hard drive. I brought my retro televisions with me and during the day I would have these videos sitting on the screen and looping, while passing I would watch, reflect, and go back and edit. I really enjoyed this process of quick prototyping and iterating.
Oh, and I have a 1bit anti-game titled Your Body Was A Waiting Room, that I did some editing. It’s a short poetry game about liminality where you play as a kind of human wandering hallways and meeting cute creatures who have surreal and silly things to say to you. You can play it here! The password to the access is: AFRICOLAB and it’ll be available to play until Feb 20th 2025 only.
It’s playable on a laptop or desktop, but not suitable for mobile. Feel free to leave some reflections on your experience playing, it’ll help me edit in the future (here).
Things I worked on that I can’t wait to share with you…
I had a sapphic visual novel game I’d been meaning to write and I finally finished the first draft! It’s called Her Whispers and I’m collaborating with Folkestone based visual artist, Mushroom Babe to create it. I would love to share this with the Afri-Co-Lab community once it’s out in a few months.
I have a mixed reality theatre/circus production out this year in Brighton (Autumn 2025), when I wanted to change up activities I would write the script on this show and do some research. It’s again an extension of my interdisciplinary game/performance practice that I would like to share in future.
Share one...
Discovery
I discovered more about my process and that’s mainly feeling more confidence in myself making art from a starting place of intuition. Sometimes I don’t know why I’m putting things together or why I’m drawn towards a topic, but finding out along the way is so important to me. I have had a lot of conflict with this at times in my career and I think coming to an infinity that I make stuff I like from this free flow space is important for me.
Joy
Many! I suppose what I loved was inviting a friend into the space and co-working together. We wandered Hastings and co-worked together. It was really lovely.
Challenge
Honestly, just leaving the studio. This isn’t a problem per se, I just really wanted to do all the creative things and spend time making. However, it meant I spent less time exploring. Regardless I think that’s okay and I don’t regret it!
I hope to leave questions and feelings of curiosities within the walls of Afri-Co-Lab :)
I had an opportunity to meet a couple of people working in the arts just a few days before my final residency day. That was really cool! I also went to the light festival in Bexhill and saw some amazing work and it was just special to both speak to new people and see local art!
Symoné
Symoné (she/they) is a Guinness World Record-holding cabaret/circus performer, theatre maker, and interdisciplinary artist merging circus, digital art and game design. Known for their high-energy performances blending hula hoops, voguing, and high-heeled roller skating, she’s graced stages in over 13 countries working with artists like Peaches, Machel Montano, and Taylor Mac. As a game designer, she reimagines gaming through queer narratives and mechanics, creating anti-games, with design focused atmosphere and player emotion. She is the founder of Melanin Power Up! @melaninpowerupofficial, a QTIPOC game design community supported by UK Black Pride. Symoné is currently engaged in the development of a mixed-reality installation piece, "A Dream Within A Dream," in collaboration with Sammy Metcalfe (Sleepwalk Collective). An experience proposing questions surrounding queer-futurism, roleplay, memory loss, dreaming, and the essence of being human in a glitchy dream-like setting that is part immersive theatre, part videogame installation.
Find out more about Symoné here: https://www.symoneperformingartist.com/
Previous Work
MEET THE PANEL
Anna Maria Nabirye
My name is Anna-Maria (she/her). I am a Black, Ugandan-British person born and raised in London, living in St Leonards. I work as an actress in mainstream theatre, film and television, as well as in devised, collaborative, experimental and political projects. I direct projects, short films and shows in drama schools here and in the USA. I also make my own work which varies from community workshops, plays, short films, experimental art films, zines, documentaries and projects that live in galleries. Amplifying diverse representations of the experiences of Black women is at the heart of everything I do.
João Conceição
João Conceição is a curator born in Lisbon, Portugal, and is currently Assistant Curator at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea. They have previously worked at Gasworks, London, and Chisenhale Gallery, London, and hold a Masters in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London. Recent curatorial projects include: Liminal Languages, Appleton, Lisbon (2022); Queering Landscapes, a film programme in partnership with Queer Lisboa at Deptford Cinema, London (2019); In a State of Alterity, Painel Gallery, Porto (2017); and As in, us viewing the objects. the objects viewing each other. and then the objects, Chalton Gallery, London (2016).
Esther Collins
Image by Rosie Powell
Esther Collins is Head of Learning at Towner Eastbourne. Since joining in 2020 she has delivered artist residency projects in the building including Jennifer Binnie and Christine Binnie, Rita Evans and Leap Then Look, and the Open Plan programme with Sophie Chapman. Outside of the gallery she has supported artists to develop new public art commissions, delivering weekly workshops with early years and projects in Secondary Schools. In her former role at Cubitt Artists she managed multi-year artist residencies in care settings, large-scale outdoor public events, public commissions and symposiums. She has previously worked at Stour Valley Arts, the National Portrait Gallery and Turner Contemporary. As a freelancer she has delivered various community engagement projects for Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, Cement Fields, HS2, Bow Arts and [SPACE].
Joseph Constable
![image001[30].jpeg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a84f86_59bfe78722b049e19aced2ad56e7dd73~mv2.jpeg/v1/crop/x_752,y_165,w_685,h_854/fill/w_210,h_262,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/image001%5B30%5D.jpeg)
Joseph Constable is a curator, writer, and producer based between Hastings and London. He is currently Head of Exhibitions at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. Previously, he was Associate Exhibitions Curator at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Constable holds a Masters in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London. Awards and residencies include Shanghai Curators Lab 2019, Writer in Residence at Jerwood Arts (2019), and in 2015, he was the winner of the NEON Curatorial Award, in collaboration with The Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Nene Camara
Lilly Babirye
Originally from London, Elaine Mullings now lives and works in East Sussex. Her art practice centres on sculpture, installation and printmaking. Following 14 years as a television producer and director at the BBC, she left broadcasting to pursue her passion for visual art. She holds an MFA Sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. While there, she won the Red Mansion Art Prize and the resulting residency in Beijing, PRC has had a lasting impact on her practice. Since then, she has won several national and international art commissions and continues to exhibit work locally and in London.
Nene Camara (they/them) is a performer and creative producer, they have created and produced performances with/for schools, theatres, festivals, cabarets, club kids, friends, and for their own enjoyment. They are intensely interested in platforming the creative practices of communities that are often under-resourced yet still offering unique perspectives, finding exciting and intricate ways to continue artmaking.
Hello there. My name is Lilly (she/her), and I started my life journey in Uganda, moving to the UK as a refugee with my family. I'm a textile artist/fashion designer learning my craft at Westminster University and refining my skills through the fashion label - AFRORETRO which I co-founded. If you are ever in Hastings, you can find me in the Lab that is Afri-Co-Lab. There, I support the local community to dream creatively and freely, developing and delivering a programme of creative experiences for the East Sussex community.