Please note: This event took place in May 2025
First Friday is a monthly social and showcasing event open to anyone. It takes place in the Pervasive Media Studio every First Friday throughout the year except for August and January. As well as the chance to socialise in the Pervasive Media Studio, attendees joining the event will also get to see a selection of work by some of our Studio community.
This May, we will be collaborating with Diverse Artists Network (DAN), who are a development agency for diversity in the arts, promoting cultural competency and representation in the sector. They are hosting Mini-DIASPORA! themed events this Spring.
In addition, this event will kickstart Home, a year long programme that weaves through Watershed – from our Studio, through to our cinema, and immersive gallery, Undershed. It will explore when and where people feel they belong, how they inhabit their domestic spaces, and what happens when our home is under threat.
The Artists
Studio Morsi is a collab between Emmanuella Morsi and experimental creatives. Access As A Creative Tool is our co-created inclusive design framework, and Emmanuella will be creatively sharing work-in-progress AAACT insights from From Ghana To Bristol: Reimagining Reparative Justice In A Postcolonial World in collab with Iman West and Edson Burton.
Bashart Malik is a Bristol-based filmmaker known for his fearless exploration of social issues. Bashart and his team are developing a film exposing the dangers of the Think Family education model: police surveillance and predictive policing, and will be demonstrating an AI developed to support members of the public who have been victims of Stop & Search.
Niki Groom has been documenting scenes concerning migration since volunteering in the Calais Jungle for Choose Love in 2016. Over the past 9 years she’s sketched at protests, Bristol Refugee Festival, Refugee Women of Bristol dance events, and the opening of the Refugees Welcome Hub in Weston-super-Mare. Niki will be sharing her sketchbooks & paintings.
Dhruv Chauhan fuses together sprinklings of technology with whimsical creative practices – particularly in the musical and visual art domains. Previous works have explored aspects of tangible and adaptive user exploration in the musical domain – and silly hats. This project presents an alternative way to explore musical lineage and culture interactively.
Rene Katiisa is a trained actress, producer and creative director. She trained at The BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology and The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She re-emerges into her passion and creativity after a 20-year career in the public sector. Her monologues will explore the theme of home, from childhood to motherhood.
//Kabbo Hue Qua is a multidisciplinary artist working in performance, writing and visual arts. He’s an Indigenous Afrikan storyteller weaving ancient stories with indigenous sounds and poetry, exploring soundscapes through movement for remembering and healing. He’ll be demonstrating a kaleidoscope of his worX across different timelines in his life.
About Pervasive Media Studio
The Pervasive Media Studio hosts an international community of over 200 artists, companies, technologists, and academics exploring experience design and creative technology. It's a space for risk taking and early ideas; for the kind of projects and questions that inhabit the meeting points of art, technology, and society.
The projects span play, robotics, location-based media, food, connected objects, interactive documentary, new forms of performance and more.
We have an open plan studio with a culture of generosity, curiosity, and interruptibility. We believe that by clustering people together from a broad range of backgrounds, with differing skills, experience, and opinions, all of our ideas become better.
Join the First Friday mailing list here.
This event is supported by MyWorld.