Diasporas Now by Furmaan Ahmed
ICA Creatives is our core young artists programme, offering free artist-led creative workshops for people aged 16-30. The 2025/2026 edition of ICA Creatives will take a multidisciplinary, genre-fluid approach to creativity in collaboration with live art collective, Diasporas Now.
Through hands-on workshops led by artists from Diasporas Now, participants will learn various forms of making, gathering, and producing – from writing, image-making practices, movement, performance and set design.
The programme will run over three terms. Each term will be led by a different artist from the collective and comprised of six workshops. Using the ICA Studio as a site-specific location, sessions will focus on helping young artists to develop projects which reflect their experiences of contemporary culture.
There will be an opportunity for the participants of each term to come together for a public showcase of the collective work made during the workshops, in a building-wide takeover of the ICA in the summer of 2026.
ICA’s mission is to future-proof the creative industries for generations to come through inclusive pathways and progression routes. This programme aims to support emerging talent and creativity, enabling young people to become part of the ICA’s community and gain access to the wider artistic programme, including exhibitions, live music, cinema, and more. There are opportunities to meet industry professionals and get behind the scenes of a world-class interdisciplinary arts organisation.
Bios
Diasporas Now is a live art collective founded by Rieko Whitfield, Paola Estrella and Lulu Wang. They are currently in residence at ICA and working collaboratively on ICA’s Speaking Futures programme, a yearlong series of talks, workshops and performances exploring artists as catalysts for imagining and shaping the future.
Lulu Wang is a London-based Chinese interdisciplinary artist. She draws inspiration from her heritage and digital subcultures to explore hybrid identities and connections across humanity and social relationships. Through sculpture making, installation, and immersive choreography, her practice revolves around visual work in collaboration with new technologies, fashion, and experimental music.
Rieko Whitfield is a Japanese-American artist and composer whose multidisciplinary practice is part of an ongoing mythological and propositional world-building project. Weaving ritual performance, experimental music, collective healing workshops, curating, and community organising, her work prototypes alternative futures and cross-industry cultural infrastructures grounded in diversity, equity, and artist-guided intuition. She has self-released music through Diasporas Now as her label.
Paola Estrella is a multimedia artist from Mexico based in London. Her work shifts across painting, video, installation, and performance, with speculative fiction serving as a core element of her practice. Estrella delves into the impact of new technologies on public and private spheres, examining how the imaginary shapes social conventions, identity, and our notion of reality. Her interest lies in the intricate tensions and complexities of belief systems and worldviews, the intersection of imagination and perception in relation to transcendent experiences.
Join us for Term 1
Learn more about Term 1 and apply by following the link below. While no prior art-making experience is necessary, you must be able to commit to all sessions within your selected term:
Term 1: Writing for a Multidisciplinary Artistic Practice with RIEKO
27 September – 6 December 2025
Led by Diasporas Now member RIEKO, the first term explores writing as a generative force driving multi-disciplinary world-building across both personal and collective levels.
Learn more about Term 1 and apply by following the link below. While no prior art-making experience is necessary, you must be able to commit to all sessions within your selected term:
Term 1: Writing for a Multidisciplinary Artistic Practice with RIEKO
27 September – 6 December 2025
Led by Diasporas Now member RIEKO, the first term explores writing as a generative force driving multi-disciplinary world-building across both personal and collective levels.
Applications are now open
Deadline: 14 September 2025
Apply here
no. 236848.