Residencies 

This programme brings making into the museum, giving artists, designers, performers and creators unprecedented access to world-class arts resources, mentorship, studio space, creative programming and the opportunity to publicly display their work.

Each year, three creatives work for 12 months, full-time, based in a studio space at the V&A South Kensington. Each Adobe Creative Resident is paired with a curatorial mentor who acts as a guide to the collection throughout their time. Residents also work with a designated audience (schools, families or young people) and collaborate with the learning team to expand access to creativity, design and making. The programme ends with a display of their work at V&A South Kensington. Work from the previous year’s Adobe Creative Residents is now part of a free display at the V&A South Kensington until November 2025. More information can be found here.

The Adobe Creative Residency is supported by the Adobe Foundation.

Open calls are now closed for this year. The open call for 2026 will be announced in May 2025.

For further information please contact the Residencies Team residencyprogramme@vam.ac.uk

Jessica Starns

Inclusive Design Resident
Focus audience: Schools

Jessica is an installation and multidisciplinary artist interested in inclusive design, disability history and rights. Her practice is participatory, collaborative and inclusive with a focus on disability and neurodiversity.

Collections and archival material are a rich source of inspiration and central to Jessica’s practice. She invites social commentary and critique on past societal norms and their impact on people’s lives today. Her work in representation includes exhibiting in the landmark exhibition ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ at the People’s History Museum and participating in the pioneering project at University College London, ‘Prejudice and Power, Framing Inclusion: AI art response to Burt’s educational standards’ with young people and the Alliance for Inclusive Education.

Jessica is highly experienced in working with institutions to further inclusion and access through public programming. Her work also tackles the infrastructure and systems within organisations to reduce barriers to engagement, ensuring disabled people feel represented and welcomed in public spaces such as The British Museum and Battersea Arts Centre.

As Inclusive Design Resident, Jessica will combine her creative practice, lived experience and her museum participation career using the V&A’s collections to represent how disability enriches our understanding of design. Jessica will research adaptive design and focus on objects created by disabled people for disabled people in the ‘1900 to Now Gallery’ and the Rapid Response collection. She will explore occupational therapy and how people design ‘coping mechanisms’ for themselves.

Jessica will collaborate with the Schools team to create a supportive design studio for children, young people and their support network. She will also draw on her skills and experience as a qualified youth support worker to connect more deeply with her focus audience.

“I shall be researching adaptive design in the V&A collection as well as exploring the design processes within occupational therapy.”

Ciara Neufeldt

Mosaics and Ceramic Tilework Resident
Focus audience: Families

Ciara is a ceramic artist and educator creating objects and installations to bring playfulness and joy into public spaces. For her, joy transcends barriers and is universally relatable. Her practice centres on bringing a moment of joy into everyday life, through her work. Her interventions are functional, tactile and colourful, with the intention of creating inclusion and accessibility to art in our daily environments.

Ciara uses the ‘nerikomi’ technique of layering colourful clays, to dramatic effect by laying over objects and largescale structures, such as furniture, and incorporate her interest in somatic practices, inviting a heightened awareness of the relationship between mind and body to understand areas of discomfort and imbalance. Ciara’s interests lie in exploring how somatic practice can lead to engaging underserved audiences, particularly families, in public spaces.

Her work as an educator and facilitator are integral to her practice in making ceramics an accessible artform and in collaborating with the public to create artworks that serve a social purpose through long-term projects at organisations such as Glasgow Ceramic Studios, Sculpture House in Paisley and in collaboration with local charities.

As Mosaics and Ceramic Tilework Resident, Ciara will collaborate with the Families team. She plans to explore themes of community, care and collective making inspired by the ceramics collections, and mosaics in the fabric of the historic building at V&A South Kensington and at Young V&A at Bethnal Green. She will also research the quilts collection to understand how this process of communal making can inform her making process.

“Joy lies at the core of my practice, acting as a catalyst for what I make and teach. I am eager to explore the histories of objects within the V&A collection which align with this, using it to bring people together through a series of joyful workshops which highlight themes of care and community.”

Michael Akuagwu

Photography Resident
Focus Audience: Young People

Michael is a multimedia artist blending photography and photo-manipulation with a surreal approach to explore themes of self, identity, culture and society. Whilst questioning whether his work fits under an Afro-surrealist context, he uses self-portraiture to highlight contemporary issues through the creation of otherworldly scenes.

As a self-taught creative, Michael has first-hand experience of navigating the creative industries and is passionate about sharing his insight with young people to support them in finding their pathway to a creative career.

He is a co-founder and co-presenter of ‘Rule of Thirds’, a podcast about art, design and culture from the perspectives of three Black-British graphic designers in industry, building a national and international following. He has worked for agencies like Ogilvy and other cultural organisations whilst creating work for brands like HOKA, CASIO and the BBC.

As Photography Resident, Michael will collaborate with the Young People’s team to share his creative process and inspire young people to use self-portraiture as a powerful tool for self-expression.

He plans to begin his research with the documentary photography collection that captures Black British life from the 1950s to the 1990s, treating the Black British photographers in the collection as 'Old Masters'. He will draw inspiration from their work while experimenting with new forms of photography and analogue photo-manipulation. His goal is to reimagine how Black British life today can be captured through his distinctive lens.

"Kerry James Marshall speaks about 'Old Master works' and how their principles informed his practice. That idea has stayed with me, and I’m inspired to create my own collective of 'Old Masters' using the works of Black photographers within the V&A Collection as a foundation."

Meet and learn about our residents with drop-in creative workshops, open studio sessions, and resident-led activities. Aimed at families, young people and schools.

Our Residency programme has hosted a wide range of practitioners since it was established. Watch our films to get a first-hand account of the research and projects that our residents have carried out.