a bit about me
“I’m letting go of pretending I’m in control”
― Kavitha Rao
“You are not unworthy. The systems are unworthy.”
― Tricia Hersey
“Pleasure is the point. Feeling good is not frivolous, it is freedom.”
― adrienne maree brown
Hey! I’m Roseanna and I am a producer, curator, facilitator, artist and researcher based in Bristol.
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My work sits at the intersection of creativity, inclusion, and social change, with a focus on creating spaces where care, connection, and imagination can thrive. The quotes above represent some of the teachers and themes that help to guide me and my work.
In my freelance work I curate and manage projects, design and deliver workshops, and support teams and communities to co-create more inclusively and creatively. My work spans facilitation, training, event and resource production, research and evaluation.
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I run Studio Susegad (pronounced soo-seh-gaad), a creative studio and R&D consultancy I launched in 2022. Our work centres rest, care, and connection in creative practice through gatherings, facilitation, and curated experiences. It grows from conversations with artists often marginalised in the mainstream— particularly young creatives and people from Global Majority backgrounds— and aims to model ways of working that resist extraction and burnout culture. We believe creativity can feel good, and that slowing down can be an act of resistance.
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Alongside this, I’m also a writer and poet, exploring intergenerational stories, healing, and belonging. Writing (publically) is still a relatively new practice for me, one that challenges and delights me in equal measure.
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I continue to freelance and collaborate widely alongside running my business and raising my child. I'd love to connect and learn about how we can work together if you feel our values align. You can read more about my values and how I got here below.
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how did I get here?
care
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Care is a huge theme within my work. In 2020 I began my Spaces of Care project, where my research into inclusive digital innovation helped me develop my guiding design principles. That research has deepened and morphed into many parts of my work, now informing the whole of what I do and why I set up my new creative studio so explicitly investigating care-practices.
In 2021-2023 I worked with Josephine Gyasi at Knowle West Media Centre where we co-curated Creativity + Care, which built on Spaces of Care and Josephine's practices as a Community Producer. Our co-created programme explored pleasure activism and care in production processes and in the creative sector, working alongside local, national and international artists. From this research, we created the A-Z of Care Cards - an accessible toolkit for embedding more care into creative work/our wider lives.
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In 2022 I co-curated and produced Anthologies of Care with gentle/radical and Holly Muse. This experimental online space explored self care, restoration and reparation over the course of a Sunday afternoon and was attended by over 400 people from across the globe.
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In 2023 I navigated a tricky pregnancy after a bit of a journey to get there, and in 2024 I became a mother to my little boy, and learnt about navigating new motherhood with keeping a small business running. These experiences have shifted and shaped my notions and practices of care and continue to do so each and every day.
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I love delivering workshops about radical care and rest processes and have worked with a variety of groups and organisations to deliver these over the years.
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change
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From 2018 - 2022 I worked at Rising Arts Agency - a youth-led arts agency supporting 18-30 year olds in the creative industries. As Exec Producer on BE IT Transforming Leadership programme (2020-2022), I supported young leaders making change through non traditional means to shake up the industry and practise leading their way.
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As Critical Agitator and Researcher on Rising’s Resourcing Racial Justice programme (2020-2021), I supported our Global Majority community and staff, and devised and implemented strategies of rest and care through action research working with our community and critical friends and supporters.
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A lot of my work at Rising over the years (I used to lead our other flagship project Whose Culture Is It Anyway? 2018-2020) has empowered me to surface the tensions in creative practice and in system change work and find community-led and collective ways of addressing them. During my time at Rising Arts Agency I have developed methodologies around creative leadership, radical care, slow inclusion and resourcing racial justice. ​
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In 2024 I was delighted to become a Non Executive Director of the organisation, supporting the leadership team to navigate an increasingly complex landscape.
Change making is a thread through all of my work and working relationships - what are the potential changes we can make, what are the blockers, how does change makes us feel, and what we can do to navigate and support change with love and care, are all core concerns for me. These questions guide my change consultancy work.
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community
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In 2022, I co-led UnEarthed with Lukus Robbins - a National Lottery and Joseph Rowntree Foundation funded project. We explored what our future relationship to land might be when we take time to imagine futures collectively, as part of our communities. After our UK wide tour, we worked on a publication illustrating the main themes and findings - the UnEarthed Greenprint.
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From 2020-2023 I was a freelance Curator/Producer with Cardiff collective gentle/radical. During lockdown we experimented with offering quality community film events and artist training programmes online, for example, in February 2021 we ran a training programme for ethical artistic co-creation for National Theatre Wales and National Resources Wales. In 2021 we worked on our Turner Prize nomination exhibition, and I co-lead our in person event exploring critical connections (not critical mass) in community arts practice. Post lockdown I helped re-imagine the gentle/radical Film Club - the collective's flagship project which has been running for 15+ years.
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I continue to run many workshops, trainings and events with and for communities both online, offline and hybrid, and have many tried and tested techniques for creating care-fuelled gatherings that feel meaningful to people.
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space
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Space and place are really important in my inclusion and engagement work, as other roles show. In 2019-2020 I was selected as a Research Fellow in Inclusion for Digital Placemaking to explore how digital/hybrid spaces and digital placemaking processes could centre care and support radical change makers. This was a pivotal project for me and was an incubator for what would become my business, Studio Susegad.
Before that, I was a researcher in Inclusive Production Practices - studying for a creative producing masters (with a focus on inclusion/creative technology); and I also worked at arts organisations Trinity (a community arts organistion) and Watershed (an independent cinema and cultural hub).
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In my creative writing, I explore nature connection and the qualities of space and place, within the context of intergenerational healing.
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Projects and organisations I've worked with include
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Anagram
BBC Arts
BFI
Bristol + Bath Creative R&D
Bristol Beacon
Bristol Cable
British Council
Careful Trouble
Care Workers Charity
Calling The Shots
Clwstwr
Container Magazine
Engage
Greenpeace
East Bristol Cinema
In Place of War
Invia
Jerwood Arts
MAIA
Mayk
No Bindings
Promising Trouble
Reclaim The Frame
Rife
Scottish Documentary Film Council
Shelby X Studios
Sour Lemons
South West Creative Technology Network
Spike Island
Trigger
Trinity Community Arts
Watershed
We Are Parable