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Activist-in-Residence

The Activist-in-Residence (AiR) programme in brings community organisers, artists and advocates into dialogue with academics to address social issues. Initially funded by the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account, the project has been funded by the Global Cultures Institute since 2026, with new projects launching every other year.

Over a defined period, each residency:

  • Co-defines a challenge with community partners, grounded in lived experience and research.
  • Co-produces activities – workshops, making, events and digital outputs – that invite wider participation.
  • Shares and embeds methods and resources others can adapt across King’s and with external partners.

Current Activist-in-Residence projects


Previous Activist-in-Residence projects

In 2023–25 the scheme provided £20,000 for four residencies tackling real-world challenges and sharing practical outputs that travel beyond the university through the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account – learn more about these projects below.

 

Race Across the Channel: Challenging Racism Denial in France and the UK

Dr Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, in collaboration with French antiracist activists and podcasters Rokhaya Diallo and Grace Ly, explored how political and media elites in France and the UK construct narratives that deny, invert, or demonise antiracist scholarship and activism. Through bilingual podcasts and public-facing media outputs, the team tackled questions often left unspoken: What makes racism "deniable"? How are antiracist voices reframed as threats? And what can transnational solidarity offer in the face of these discursive attacks?

race across the channel (feature)

Rebel by Default: Power Bags and Participatory Research with Women Living with HIV

Dr Katharine Low and Dr Ella Parry-Davies brought together King’s researchers and colleagues from Positively UK to co-create an arts project with women living with HIV. Through a series of co-facilitated workshops, participants designed and crafted symbolic "Power Bags" – textile artworks containing personal objects that reflected their identities, experiences, and aspirations – to amplify the voices of women often excluded from research and healthcare conversations, using creative practice as a tool for visibility, agency, and change.

rebel by default (feature)

Reimagining Language Justice Through the Art of Translation

Led by Cristina Viti with Dr Rosa Mucignat and Professor Sanja Perovic, this project responded to the erasure of minoritised languages and the constraints of institutional language by bringing together poets, translators, publishers and activists to explore how language shapes power, identity and resistance. Rooted in the idea of "activist translation," the programme addressed different language injustices – from marginalised UK languages like Cornish, Gaelic, Welsh, Scots and BSL, to the experience of navigating migration and bureaucracy.

language justice (feature)

moving/homing: reimagining home, movement and belonging in ESEA communities

This project, co-led by Dr Wing-Fai Leung, Dr Jonathan Gray, and movement artist David Kam, explored how East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) communities experience home, movement, and belonging through the body. Through two workshops – one on storytelling and one on community walking – artists and organisers reflected on migration, care, and solidarity, using creative and embodied methods to share personal stories, build connections, and support one another in rethinking what "home" can mean in diasporic contexts.

moving homing (feature)

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