hi i’m Dionne, a transdisciplinary artist, researcher, ethnographer, spacemaker, writer, teacher, facilitator, dj, creative producer,
somatic + embodiment explorer and human Being based between the uk and Norway, via the Caribbean.
Entwining art, care, sound, ecology, somatics, embodiment, ritual, ethnoautobiography, archives, text and social practice, i focus on accessible, inclusive, sustainable and socially-engaged practice, sensory-led Spacemaking, community building installations and experiences in ‘unusual’ spaces, locally, regionally, internationally and online.
Research & Inquiry
my research is around my work both with art + embodiment (particularly through the lens of neuroscience + social-body-extero-intero-proprioception) as powerful de/anticolonial methodologies and modalities for creating spaces of sanctuary, sites of healing, and belonging through sensory experience.
my work is interested in connecting artistic, cultural and ecological practice and research with my indigenous background exploring embodied temporalities, psychogeography, memory, archives, ritual, repair and belonging, to ourselves and each Other.
my practice takes a bottom-up, inclusive and multidimensional approach, spanning boundaries, place + space, with crossover projects and includes site-specific interactive installations, workshops, worldbuilding generative ‘environments’, pedagogy for public engagement and community building. i am ever-in-dialogue with ecologies, buildings, spaces, places, animal friends, people and the relationships between.
i’m deeply passionate about art, embodiment, ecology and social practice creating opportunities for healing and transformation.
i’m interested in Other ways of Being,
honouring our interdependent and interconnected worlds + landscapes
creating soft + tender transformation,
and infinite possibilities 💫
Sector Advocacy & Structural Care
my approach to the cultural sector is explicitly anti-elitist, equitable, and compassionate. As an active spaceholder and educator with over 10,000 international facilitation hours, i’m deeply invested in dismantling disabling barriers within arts and cultural infrastructure.
my institutional action and practice-based research as a Higher Education Changemaker at Central Saint Martins directly addresses the unique challenges faced by low-residency, disabled, and racially minoritized practitioners. This led to my work establishing and co-founding Blk Art Collective (BLACCC), a project built since May 2024 which was greenlit and piloted at Central Saint Martins, UAL in 2025-6.
Whether collaborating with local, regional, national and international institutions or nurturing grassroots community networks, i treat the structures around art-making as an extension of creative practice itself. Infused with care and for the people.
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🛠 want to work together? hire me? share a delight? get in touch!
📝 follow my field notes and practice reflections over on my multimedia zine, ‘a space to land’ (my substack) here!
🖼 find my ‘art-chive’ in-progress here
🍑 find my og home over on dionne.space
some context for potential collaborators…
my particular ‘lenses’ of the world are shaped by being a black, mixed-heritage (to use the language of this particular moment of time*), transnational, transcultural, disabled, survivor, person-living-with-a-chronic-illness, neurodivergent-spicy-emergent human from a working-class background, amongst many Other multifaceted ways of Being…
i’m invested in co-creating more inclusive, accessible, sustainable ways of being which are trauma responsive, compassionate and non-snooty.
i’m interested in equity, agency, infinite possibilities and freedom for us all. Holding space for kindness and compassion and spaciousness in our healing processes of learning-unlearning-untangling + all the glorious moments in-between is important to me as creatures of this earth, ever-in-process.
*Sidenote: i’m reluctant to attach myself to labels unless they feel liberatory so using language which feels resonant at this moment in time and holding space for the ✨power✨ language has, as well as the ✨potential✨ it holds for change. I am as much of a ‘student-learner-beginner’ as i am an ‘elder millennial’, holder of ‘decades of experience’ and ‘qualifications’ and ‘artist-teacher-facilitator-spaceholder + maker’. These things co-exist and i’m happy for that to be so (ever-learning-unlearning-reframing-refining-remixing-always!) 💜
Gratitude, Grounding, Lineage & Methodology
As a practice-based artist and researcher, my methodology and methods are not separate from the work; they explicitly inform, construct, and sustain it. My practice is fundamentally grounded in decolonial and anticolonial frameworks, intentionally designed to subvert traditional, extractive forms of institutional research by operating as a live, responsive site of care.
my particular lenses, Spacemaking + holding, archiving, and community worldbuilding are structurally informed by a rich, intergenerational lineage i’m ever-grateful to.
My transdisciplinary approach is in continuous, ever-in-process active dialogue with the following core thematic lineages and practitioners:
- Anticolonial & Caribbean ways of Being: including Sylvia Wynter, Édouard Glissant.
- Black Geographies & Feminist Theory: including Katherine McKittrick, bell hooks, Minna Salami.
- Emergent Strategy & Liberation Practice: including adrienne maree brown (Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism), Grace Lee Boggs.
- Disability Justice, Crip Futurities & Access: including Alice Wong, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
- Critical Pedagogy & Institutional Critique: including bell hooks, Pablo Helguera, Sara Ahmed.
- Embodiment, Neuroscience & Somatic Inquiry: including Dr Bo Forbes.
- Immersive Audio, Psychogeography & Social Ecology
By anchoring my transdisciplinary practice in these lineages, I approach arts and cultural infrastructure with a sustained commitment to soft, tender transformation, structural equity, and collective liberation.
Selected Collaborators
Litteraturehus Bergen, KODE, the art museums of Bergen, Norway, the Norwegian Film Institute, Arts Council England, Arts Council Norway, Griegakademiet, MK Gallery, University of the Arts, London, The National Theatre, Bergen, The Norwegian Composers' Fund, Brighton Museum and Gardens and NTS Radio.
