Diasporas Now are the London-based, avant-garde, world-building collective reclaiming space through community and collaboration.
They are advocating for diverse discourses and methodologies around representation. They give total autonomy to all of the artists they invite to their community, free from the usual pressures to perform specific identities and narratives to institutional gatekeepers. They open the door, take up space, and share the spotlight – to inspire, to heal, and to celebrate multicultural lineages together.
Founded by multidisciplinary artists RIEKO (Rieko Whitfield), Lulu Wang, and Paola Estrella in 2021 at the Royal College of Art, Diasporas Now are a live art group and cultural agency, championing artists of Global Majority backgrounds from art, music, dance, to fashion and much more. Aiming to produce and create art fearlessly, even if the infrastructure doesn’t yet exist. Each member’s mission and focus are rooted in legacy and putting art into the world with pure intention, while drawing on their individual cross-industry experiences and collaborations:
“Our entire team has experience working in other fields like creative strategy and design, prior to becoming full-time artists. Everyone will tell you it’s difficult to be an artist, but when you know this is your life’s purpose, it’s arguably more difficult to not pursue it. Being an artist is certainly never straightforward but if you take the leap, your unique path appears. Diasporas Now illuminates an amalgamation of these paths, not just for us but for all of the artists we work with.”
This is something the collective put into action last summer in 2025, with their debut collaborative project ‘Sounding Futures,’ at the renowned Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) called for. Diasporas Now’s ICA resident artists and collaborator Joshua Woolford were working remotely at the time across continents, were able to research and develop a performance from conception to execution - from choreography to songwriting and composition, to dramaturgy and scripts for spoken word while also bringing in special guests like cellist Abi Asisa and set designer Furmaan Ahmed. They came together in person for two days, helped build the set as a team, and rehearsed in the ICA theatre before showcasing the end result to a public audience. While they performed, they documented the process by filming one another, projecting the footage live on stage; creating an archive of the performance in real time. Both the performance and the panel talk that followed invited audiences to think beyond the usual parameters of performance art, not just the finished outcome, but the process of collaborative making as central to the work itself. They allow space to deconstruct, analyse, and champion more collaborative methods in the art world, in an ecosystem that can often default to individualism.
It's obvious Diasporas Now, not only talk the talk, but walk the walk through their five-year track record, which is refreshing and encouraging to see. They highlight the true value of the platform as “owning cultural infrastructure as a form of artistic sovereignty and sharing the opportunities we create with artists we admire.” For example, during their year-long collective residency at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), they co-envisioned the public programme with curator Hannah Geddes as a more sustainable, artist-centred alternative to one-off institutional events or museum “Lates.” They focus not just on the present, but a future where they collectively and actively prototype how institutions and creative communities can work together - providing an organic exchange of resources for cultural capital that prioritises long-term symbiosis.
On 7 March, Diasporas Now return for their final artist takeover at ICA. The group will be inviting back all of the guest artists, they had hosted across their year-long residency, to show work and share the stage for one final celebration. The event will feature live performances, discussions and works from visionaries and forward-thinkers: Julianknxx, Black Obsidian Sound System, BULLYACHE, Helen Cammock, Ivan Michael Blackstock, SERAFINE1369, RESOLVE Collective, alongside RIEKO, Lulu, Paola, Joshua, and Furmaan, and young creatives mentored under Diasporas Now through their ICA Creatives collaboration.
One thing INTROE have established, is that this collective has serious foresight, “We are also taking Diasporas Now global by expanding outside of the U.K., while continuing to nurture our local and national networks. Our vision of the future of culture is decentralised, nodal, nomadic, and mycelial.”
An incubator for new discourses, rituals, and worlds across cultural backgrounds and disciplines, they also urge our readers, “For the love of grassroots culture put down your phones, get together in person, and be radical in your humanness. Dance, sweat, laugh, cry, and hold space for empathy, diverse perspectives, and complex conversations. Show support for your community not as a marketing buzzword, but as a daily lived practice.”
To the curious, in-the-know, and avid admirers alike, we encourage you to head to Diasporas Now ICA takeover on 7 March. The full schedule is bursting at the seams with variety. Indulge in community, celebration, and ceremony in real time. The full line-up and timetable are listed on the ICA website.
