Creative Catalyst 2025
Hybrid Residency | Summer 2025 (May 12 – July 31)
Eleven artists, one collaborative studio, and a residency that aims to redefine who gets to shape the future of digital storytelling.
Reimagining Digital Storytelling
B3 Medialaunches Creative Catalyst 2025—a bold reinvention of the artist residency that puts Black and global majority creatives at the heart of digital innovation. Running throughout Summer 2025 (May 12 – July 31), this hybrid programme supports eleven artists as they explore the storytelling potential of immersive tools, AI, and spatial sound across both B3's Brixton microstudio and online platforms. Building on B3 Media's TalentLab XR programme, Creative Catalyst mixes in-person studio time with virtual collaboration, ensuring access for artists based across the UK and beyond.
Why Now?
"The storytelling landscape is changing at breakneck speed," says Marc Boothe, Creative Director of B3 Media. "We're seeing emerging tech completely rewire how stories get made and shared. The big question is: who gets to use these tools? Creative Catalyst puts these tools directly in the hands of artists who've long been pushing boundaries with limited resources."
How It Works
Over twelve weeks, participating artists will mix face-to-face sessions with digital collaboration, experimenting with tools that are reshaping storytelling: immersive digital environments, AI storytelling tools, spatial audio, and motion capture technology. The programme culminates in a public showcase in November 2025—giving audiences an early look at projects that challenge creative limits.
Why It Matters
B3 Media has been rooted in Brixton since 2001, nurturing creative voices from underrepresented communities. TalentLab XR alumni have presented works-in-progress at platforms including SXSW, Remix London, and LFF Expanded, with many securing development funding for their projects.
Creative Catalyst continues this legacy—challenging who gets access to the technologies shaping tomorrow's culture while expanding the possibilities of what digital storytelling can be and who gets to lead it.
Meet the Artists
This year's cohort spans poetry, sound design, digital performance, filmmaking, and speculative design exploring themes of climate justice, memory, migration, and healing.
Hannah Oliver – Lens-based artist exploring hidden histories and climate justice through photography, film, and immersive installations, with work presented at the Roundhouse and British Library.
Jay Oliver Yip – Filmmaker and actor crafting emotionally resonant narratives that explore British-South-East Asian family life across theatre, short films, and digital media.
Gary Alake Riley – Graphic designer and animator creating City Limits, a futuristic animated series exploring identity and mythology through digital performance and urban world-building.
Kesi Stevens – Multidisciplinary writer and poet amplifying untold stories of the diaspora through publishing, performance, and digital media projects.
Leann O'Kasi – Actor, writer, and director building immersive worlds with cultural depth that explore identity, power, and the politics of perception.
Gopal Dutta – Filmmaker and narrative designer creating multisensory experiences inspired by nature and memory, blending digital storytelling with spiritual and ecological themes.
Lara Kobeissi – 3D artist creating immersive works exploring cultural memory, drawing from Levantine folklore to create experiences navigating intergenerational knowledge.
Jeremiah Brown – Writer and photographer preserving cultural knowledge through digital storytelling, transforming oral histories into interactive archives of West Indian culture.
RCL Graham – Unreal Engine developer and filmmaker creating interactive stories at the intersection of cinema, XR, and Afrofuturism that push immersive storytelling boundaries.
Marcus Joseph – Composer and jazz musician blending spatial sound and storytelling to build immersive musical experiences rooted in identity, resistance, and joy.
Wanda Hu – Experimental storyteller exploring how spatial sound and architecture shape perception, creating sensory environments that challenge how we experience space and memory.
Creative Catalyst 2025 is funded by Arts Council England and developed and produced by Marc Boothe, Creative Director of B3 Media.