Ugonna Hosten is a Criminology graduate turned designer. In 2008, she left her job as a civil servant, where she had worked for 4 years. Leaving something that she was so familiar with required a lot of faith, careful thought, research and support from her friends and family. It then...

On the 24th April 2012, CIDA will be hosting the second annual Cr8net conference at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in Mayfair. The host will be The RSA’s Chief Executive Matthew Taylor. He will be joined by Alan Davey (CEO Arts Council England) Ekow Eshun (cultural commentator, former Director...

When Diahann Topping – aka Dee – stepped up to the mic at The Spitz venue in May 2004, she had no idea just how positively the crowd would react. “It was amazing,” the Hackney-based singer-songwriter recalls. “Everyone was feeling it. When I stepped off stage, I was swamped with...

“CIDA use language that creative people understand.” Gaynor O’Flynn is no stranger to crossing boundaries. Since starting her own creative business, the self-styled multimedia artist has refused to be pigeon-holed into one genre. Besides running an independent record label, she also helps create art and film projects, organises events and...

“This year has been incredible for me,” says Priscilla Igwe, director of Bow-based media company Black Filmmaker (bfm). “I’ve been learning at the speed of light.” Originally set up by award-winning filmmaker Menelik Shabazz in 1998, the organisation’s primary purpose is to raise the profile of black cinema locally and...

Bukola Dagiloke is a graphic designer who studied at the University of the Arts LCC, graduating in 2006 with a BA Hons in Information Design and an FdA in Graphic Design for Communication. Working as the Creative Editor at photography studio Urban Photography after graduating, Bukola wanted to venture out...

Hackney resident Matthew Krishanu was born in Bradford in 1980.  Matthew’s art practice is based in drawing and painting. His work is often narrative – places and people glimpsed and quickly sketched, then worked up into acrylic, oil and water colour paintings. Sometimes the work is site specific, drawn/painted directly...

Gaze up at the Shoreditch skyline and you could be excused for doing a double-take. Perched on a disused viaduct, high above the streets below, stand six brightly coloured tube carriages. The brainchild of furniture designer, Auro Foxcroft, Village Underground looks like a piece of modern art, but it is...

When Ranjit Jhita first approached CIDA for help, he couldn’t understand why his new business offering quality design services at subsidised rates to the voluntary sector was struggling to get off the ground. A graphic designer of 15 years, his creative credentials were impeccable. Managing a successful start-up within a...

Sara is British artist of Iranian heritage living and working in London. Born in Tehran, Iran in the midst of the Iranian revolution, Sara and family fled persecution at a young age, settling in London, where she also received treatment and overcame childhood cancer before the age of two. Surviving both the...