Asmaa Jama is a Somali artist and poet and co-founder of art collective Dhaqan Collective, based in England. This year, Asmaa was commended for Brunel African Poetry Prize, shortlisted for the Wasafiri Writing Prize and longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. Asmaa’s a Cave Canem 2021 Fellow.

Asmaa has been published in places like The Poetry Review, Ambit, Ecotheo Review, ANMLY, Ballast and Magma and has been commissioned by Arnolfini, Hayward Gallery and Ifa gallery. 

As a film director, Asmaa was commissioned by BBC Arts to make Before We Disappear an interactive film and by Bristol Old Vic to make ‘The Season of Burning Things’ which was screened, as part of ‘100 Ways to say We’ at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Jen Bell creates song portraits of people, often drawn from verbatim gathered from interviews. Her close-harmony vocal compositions combine storytelling with folk and jazz influences, and she uses the voice to create the textures and rhythms of dance music. She works across performance genres, as well as making pieces for radio.

She collaborates in the UK and internationally with singers, live artists, writers, dancers, film makers, academics and theatre makers, as an MD, composer, performer, producer or conductor. Jennifer is one of the international producers of Social Muscle Club, a member of Bristol artist collective Residence,  and a resident of Pervasive Media Studio. She often leads audiences in spontaneous choral song, and has directed and choreographed several choirs that perform in outlandish places.

Fozia Ismail is a scholar, cook and founder of Arawelo Eats, a platform for exploring politics, identity and colonialism through East African food. She has worked with a range of cultural institutions on exploring food and empire including London School of Economics, Museum of London, Serpentine Gallery, Tate Modern, National Trust, Courtauld, Bristol Old Vic, Battersea Arts Centre, Watershed and Arnolfini. 

Her work has been published by Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery and Vittles. She has been featured on Observer Food Magazine, BBC Radio 4 Food Programme, Oxford Symposium on Food &; Cookery Ox Tales podcast, Food 52, London Eater, Vice Munchies, Vittles & Bristol 24/7. She was part of the Equitable Futures cohort at Watershed. 

Fozia has developed our Feast Welcome Drinks with children at Bannerman Road school who have made fresh elderflower cordial using local foraged ingredients.

An artist collective based in Bristol/London that specialise in creating honest content by female creatives navigating the industry for themselves.

Inspired by their work as part of Knowle West Media Centre’s Creativity + Care programme where they created an intimate dinner for attendees, The Purple Girls Collective have designed the table dressings and conversation prompts for Watershed’s 40th anniversary Feast.  

www.instagram.com/purplegirlscollective/