A coral background with a yellow circle and yellow text announcing the Make Shift 2025 Creative Camp.

Introducing our 2025 Make Shift Campers

Posted on Fri 8 Aug

We are excited to announce our 2025 Make Shift Creative Campers, who will join us for five inspiring days to collide ideas, share skills and prototype experiences focused on the theme of Home Improvements.

Taking place in the Pervasive Media Studio – a space for people using creative technology in surprising ways – Make Shift offers early-stage practitioners time, space, and support to experiment, collaborate, and develop playful ideas with technology.

This year’s theme, Home Improvements, is part of a year long theme at Watershed where we are exploring the idea of Home.

From Mon 18 - Fri 22 Aug the Campers are invited to challenge the usual rush for efficiency in home technology, instead creating playful, slow, and delightfully over-complicated inventions that celebrate wonder, connection, and joy in everyday life. Our 2025 cohort includes Bristol-based people aged 18–30 from working-class backgrounds, each bringing unique experiences and perspectives. The Camp will give the practitioners the opportunity to collaborate with other people and share ideas with a friendly audience.

Introducing the Campers

Ishaan Bhatia (he/him)

Ishaan is an engineer by trade who spends much of his time exploring the unworldly through design and sound. He’s inspired by the idea of inventing things that put fun before function and looks forward to reimagining homes with a little more joy.

Ishaan says:

“The idea of inventing something by putting fun before function spoke volumes to me.”

A young man of colour is wearing a red bandana and a brown shirt and t-shirt and smiles at the camera.

Willow Simmons (they/them)

Growing up in Hartcliffe, Willow has always found creativity and history as ways to express themselves and the social deprivation that surrounded them. In recent years, they have been actively involved in political and social activism, and have just completed their first year at university.

Willow says:

“I'm looking forward to developing my creative and team-working skills, and to create things that inspire social change and progress.”

A long haired white non-binary person looks over to the camera from the left, there is a red filter across the image.

Rozhina Ghasemizadeh (she/her)

Rozhina is a multidisciplinary artist working across poetry, film, music, and performance as both expression and survival – a way to share thoughts, ideologies, political perspectives, and inner worlds. Her practice breaks through conventional forms, examining ideas from the inside out with an unorthodox lens.

Rozhina says:

“I've always worked with paper, glue, cameras, body movements, music notes, and words. Using technology in my creative process is something I've longed to explore but haven’t yet had the chance. I'm excited to finally step into that space through Make Shift Camp, and to explore it alongside other artists and creators.”

In the middle of an empty street a young woman looks into the camera wearing a leather jacket and a furry hat, the image is black and white.

Joanna Witecka (she/her)

Joanna is a multidisciplinary artist and maker. While her main practice is illustration, she also works with ceramics, printmaking, and laser cutting. Her work is fun and playful, intended to make people smile while also asking deeper questions about identity and what it means to belong.

Joanna says:

“I'm most looking forward to collaborating with other creatives and learning from their respective practices! I'm also very excited about the theme.”

A white woman with wavy pink hair looks into the camera with a slight smile on her face.

Serina Pandhare (she/her)

Serina is an interdisciplinary artist, drawing from her experience in theatre to combine creativity with technology through immersive experiences. Creating multi-sensory responses through smell, temperature, touch and space, she aims to break boundaries and present new ways of thinking.

Serina says:

“I can't wait to come together with other creatives to experiment, play, test, and push what Home Improvements can look like, through our varied perspectives.”

A smily young woman looks into the camera with a furry brown jacket on and a hand underneath her chin.

Kalahari Sevenzo (he/him)

Kalahari is an artist with a passion for history, artefacts, and immersive technology. He has worked at a range of tech startups and has received credits for copyediting on AAA games. He is inspired by multi-sensory art experiences, theosophical traditions, and the Occult.

Kalahari says:

“I am looking forward to meeting the other creatives, learning about their practice and working together to formulate our response to the theme.”

A young brown man is stood on the right with a slight smile, on the left he has his hand underneath a monkey.

Maya Albagli (she/her)

Maya is a mixed media artist from Turkey based in Bristol, UK. She is drawn to intersecting her background in dance and music production, technology, and visual storytelling into immersive space design that invites reconnection to our environment and self through a childlike wonder.

Maya says:

“I look forward to playful idea generating, meeting other makers and seeing where our imagination takes us over the week :)”

A young turkish woman with a hat with pointy ears looks off to the left, the image is black and white.

Charlotte Goldsworthy (she/her)

Charlotte explores the intersection of data, storytelling, and community crafts. Rooted in the meeting point of art and technology, her work combines natural language processing, textiles, and glitch aesthetics to question how systems shape our lives. After working in a bank and the civil service, she has recently completed an art foundation and is preparing to move to London for university, bringing a perspective shaped by both tech and lived experience.

Charlotte says:

“This camp offers the ideal environment for me to continue exploring how art and technology can create accessible, socially engaged experiences. I'm excited to experiment, challenge myself technically and conceptually, and collaborate with peers from interdisciplinary backgrounds.”

A young woman of colour looks into the camera with long dark hair and hoop earrings.

Make Shift Camp will take place over five days from Mon 18 - Fri 22 Aug. The campers who participate will each receive financial, technical and production support from Watershed.

Make Shift is made possible with support from Arts Council England and Nisbet Trust. Our Make Shift Camp is additionally supported by our partners in Pervasive Media Studio, UWE Bristol and University of Bristol. 