RISING DECADE: MEET THE ARTISTS
Our Rising Decade exhibition opens next week, celebrating 10 years of Rising with a group exhibition of work by our incredible community and a series of events that showcase different elements of our work.
In the lead up to the exhibition we wanted to share more about the artists involved and the details of their practice so you can get to know and love them as we do!
A1 Vanguard
@a1_vanguard_
Multidisciplinary artist, mentor, and creative facilitator working across spoken word, performance, film, installation, and movement, his practice explores identity, belonging, emotional resilience, and cultural representation. Through immersive and socially engaged work, he creates spaces that encourage reflection, and celebrate the complexity of being.
ALMAS TALIB
@abolitionisthealing
Activist and facilitator with a focus on using abolition, decolonial and disability justice frameworks to inform how we change our approach towards distress and healing. Almas is interested in moving towards radical community care through embodied and creative means with a political focus.
Amber Bardell
@amberbardell
Amber is an artist working with natural pigments to create mixed media paintings that celebrate the wisdom of the natural world. Coming from a background of creating something from nothing, their materials are predominantly scavenged, reclaimed and foraged. Her practice is an ongoing collaboration with nature, and also spans curating and other media.
Carlo Sebastian Hornilla
@KaaroKaaro
Carlo Sebastian Hornilla is a long list of things including: artist, illustrator, spoken word poet, facilitator, community organiser and a professional Dungeon Master (the nerdy kind)~ When they aren't trucking away at their multiple jobs as a means of survival in these trying times, they are an encourager and active participant of "fun", "play" and "connection" through critically curious exploration and collaborative storytelling. And sometimes, just sometimes, they get paid for it.
Chloe Vlahos
Chloe Vlahos is a writer, photographer and video artist based in Bristol. Her work seeks to explore themes around class, belonging, and narratives of the home. Central to her practice is the exploration of how memory and place are mediated by language and technology.
Calum McCutcheon
Cal is a sculpture and installation artist who enjoys bringing experimental, playful and connection-inducing inventions to life.
EMMANUELLA BLAKE MORSI
Emmanuella Morsi (she/they) is an award-winning multi-disciplinary artist-producer, creative researcher and production manager delivering high-impact projects across the world. Founder of Studio Morsi and former Non-Exec of Rising Arts Agency, they predominantly work across various mediums. Whether it’s developing the inclusive design framework Access As A Creative Tool or managing high-impact film productions with 6-figure budgets, Emmanuella is known for challenging approaches to inclusion and innovation in ways that amplifies marginalised voices – and most recently awarded 2025 Emerging Innovator at BEYOND (UKRI, British Council, Arts Council England).
ILAYDA akarca
@bananafish_i
Ilayda is an artist, facilitator, and producer working across exhibition-making, programming, and community-led cultural projects.
In their practice, they explore notions of home, displacement and sense of self. Their work questions the influence of family, culture and politics on identity, with an interest on the relationship between place, memory and who we are.
Ilayda will be showing prints from their ongoing body of work ‘Tansiyon’.
INAZ Hussain
Inaz is a multi-faceted Bangladeshi artist from Bristol. He focuses on filmmaking, videography and photography. He wants to bridge communities and generations together through his work.
Jaiquon Jones-Clarke
Jaiquon /Jay-kwon/ is a film photographer aiming to capture and represent working-class and intersectional stories and to oppose stereotypes in creative, expansive and informative ways.
JOSH O’CONNOR
Bristol based filmmaker & artist that uses visual media in experimental formats to explore topics advocating communication around social and ecological changeBristol based filmmaker & artist that uses visual media in experimental formats to explore topics advocating communication around social and ecological change.
KYA BEERS
@kya.beers
Kya Beers is a vibrant contemporary artist known for her bold, expressive works that burst with energy and emotion. Embracing abstraction, mixed media, and intuitive mark-making, her pieces are a riot of colour—layered, spontaneous, and alive with movement. Drawing inspiration from nature, memory, and personal narratives, Kya explores the space between chaos and calm.
LINDSEY ALLEN
@l.alien
Lindsey is an independent researcher, writer, and designer based in Bristol. Her methods are grounded in anthropology; exploring how people understand the world they live in, and their hopes and imaginaries around how this world could be. All her work sits in the intersections of care, time, disability, and the natural environment.
MITUL SHAH
@_mitulshah
A young British and Indian photographer, aspiring academic, teacher and activist. My mission is to observe, and create art that reflects, reimagines and reconstructs the world we live in. And to try make sense of it all. I am always learning new ways, processes and perspectives, and creating art is my way of reporting my findings to the world.
Molly Casares
@austeritycornflakes_
Molly Casares is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher currently based in Bristol. Her work explores questions of contemporary spirituality, selfhood and the body through academic writing painting and sculpture. Molly’s painting is influenced by theoretical and speculative texts, as well as Surrealism, Pop Art, Gothic aesthetics and Medieval bestiaries.
RHONA oughton
weronika stelmach
@weavingchange
The exhibition will culminate with a closing party on Saturday 13th June where we officially handover to the new Co-Directors of Rising.
