Family Style Magazine, Spring Issue (2026). Photo by Edd Horder.

ICA Creatives is our core young artist programme developed in collaboration with invited artists or collectives. The 2026/2027 edition of ICA Creatives is led by interdisciplinary design collective,  RESOLVE.  

This year’s ICA Creatives takes a new approach as a dedicated cohort of young people will work with RESOLVE across three seasons. Taking place from October 2026 to July 2027, the cohort will work towards a final exhibition at ICA. NO ZINES, NO ARCHIVES aims to nurture the collective, place-based creative practices of young Londoners. Rooted in the changing landscape of London, it asks not only how we narrate history, but how we actively create it. 
 
The programme is led by RESOLVE Collective and the team of Young Schemers, three assistant producers who will support the programme across the year. NO ZINES, NO ARCHIVES invites young people aged 18–21 from Greater London and its commuter belt – including areas such as Guildford, Watford, Luton, Woking, Slough, Southend, Maidstone, and Harlow – that are engaged in community-focused creative work and cultural production. 

More info

Participants do not need to be in formal education or training, only a keen interest and investment in your local area or ‘ends’. Across three “seasons”, participants will work collectively to explore themes around tacit local knowledge, community-focused creative practice, community power, and social infrastructure, working closely with RESOLVE Collective and their collaborators. 

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. 

About RESOLVE

RESOLVE is an interdisciplinary design collective that combines architecture, engineering, technology and art to address social challenges. They have delivered numerous projects, workshops, publications, and talks in the UK and across the world, all of which look toward realising just and equitable visions of change in our built environment.

Much of RESOLVE’s work aims to provide platforms for the production of new knowledge and ideas. An integral part of this way of working means designing with and for young people and under-represented groups in society. Here, ‘design’ encompasses both physical and systemic intervention, exploring ways of using a project’s site as a resource and working with different communities as stakeholders in the short and long-term management of projects. In this way, design carries more than aesthetic value; it is also a mechanism for political and socio-economic change.

RESOLVE's project portfolio ranges from architecture/urban design projects to community support work, from artist installations to research publications. They have worked critically with numerous art institutions including S1 Gallery (Sheffield), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), Tate Liverpool (Liverpool), Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt & SAAVY Contemporary (Berlin), Kunstverein Braunschweig (Braunschweig), Qattan Foundation (Palestine), and Wellcome Collection, V&A Museum, The Barbican Centre, and Mosaic Rooms (London); a variety of public sector clients such as the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Ealing, and Greenwich; and other fellow community-focused organisations such as SADACCA (Sheffield), Skin Deep (London), MAIA (Birmingham), and Mansions of the Future (Lincoln).  

They also lead an undergraduate unit at the Architectural Association, were Research Fellows at the Het Niuewe Instituut in 2020, and are Honorary Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Members of the collective hold numerous trustee and advisory positions, including Chair of Theatrum Mundi, trustee at Participatory City, and advisor for Wysing Arts Centre.

'I am well aware that by no means equal repute attends the narrator and the doer of deeds.' 

 – Sallust, History of Catiline, from the epigraph in Michel-Rolph Truillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and The Production of History (1995) 

Applications close 31 August

The programme will take place at ICA London, RESOLVE’s Material Store site in Tipping Point East, Newham, and across a network of sites in London and surrounding areas, led by community-centred organisations.   
 
Participants will need to commit to all three seasons and all sessions to apply.  Sessions will typically take place every other Wednesday, between 6:30–8:30pm. 

Season 1: October – December 2026
Mapping Your Practice

The first season introduces participants to Starting from the Endz, RESOLVE's framework that centres the local knowledge, lived experience and creativity of young people as a starting point for collective learning and imagining new futures.

Season 2: January – March 2027
Knowledge Exchange

The second season focuses on peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and building lasting networks. Participants will work alongside invited artists, designers, organisers and cultural practitioners, sharing knowledge and developing their own practices through collective discussion and exchange.

Season 3: April – June 2027
Resourcing Your Practice

The final season explores the practical and material conditions that enable creative practice. Working between the ICA Workshop and Material Store, participants will investigate sustainable approaches to making through the redistribution and reuse of materials from cultural institutions to community organisations across London.