How does a creative residency impact your practice? Quite a lot, according to these artists

The Adobe creative residents program partnership from the V&A and Adobe aims to platform the importance of arts education on the creative process and offers artists a chance to tell their own story. 2025 residents Michael Akuagwu, Jessica Starns, and Ciara Neufeldt speak about their respective and collective journeys working with each other and connecting with the collections and teams at the V&A. Adobe Creative Residents On Display is open now at V&A South Kensington.

Michael Akuagwu

Michael Akuagwu initially aimed to explore Afro-surrealism during his residency, but this idea shifted as he encountered the research opportunities available at the V&A. Documentary filmmaking and darkroom training in particular were avenues he felt could elevate his creative practice, they would give him a space to flourish and follow on from his pre-residency career journey. After meandering through a career in design, with self-portrait photography on the side, Michael came to realise the importance of personal passions. “Slowly, I came to an understanding that I wanted to pursue art, create work that shared my feelings about life, society and culture, and use my work as a way to connect with people,” Michael shares.

The V&A x Adobe creative residency program allowed his personal work to breathe. His project made during the residency, Through the Lens, looks at Black British identity and Michael facilitated inter-generational conversations between black artists, showing how vital community is in documentation. He says: “I do think about how we can make finding those histories easier for those around us and those who come after us. How can we leave the world better than we found it?” Michael’s work with the V&A’s young people’s team packages these personal realisations into inspiring work, empowering young people to use self-portraiture to express themselves.

Jessica Starns

On their journey through the Adobe creative residency program, Michael, Jess, and Ciara were all aware of how vital community is to crafting ideas and turning them into a reality. Jess is a neurodivergent creator who focused on inclusive design during their time with Adobe and the V&A. Jess originally studied for a degree degree in photography and inclusive arts practice, which they pour into work in disability access and freelance artistry. During the residency, Jess set up That’s Effort, a design studio created with young people, staff from the V&A and the charity Football Beyond Borders, it response to how badly designed accessibility tools are, and how they can actually block Disabled people from reaching their creative goals. Disabled people often have to adapt products for themselves – an idea which birthed the studio’s name.

Access to the V&A collections gave Jess insight into what inclusive design historically looked like, such as in the work of disabled artist Nerys Johnson and playing cards which belonged to 1800s academic Henry Fawcett, who lost his sight and had his cards embossed. Jess created a design and disability schools resource for teachers to use in the classroom. which exclusively included objects from the V&A. Jess suggested a new acquisition for the collection reflecting neurodivergence, and her choice, Loop Earplugs, are now on display at V&A South Kensington. Jess also created the Cookbook that’s not a cookbook during the residency alongside occupational therapist Clare Sugarman-Clarke, which includes 160 digital illustrations, 28 recipes, and QR codes linking how-tos, aiming to support dexterity in cooking and eating. The cookbook aids everyday challenges faced, such as food avoidance and fatigue.

Ciara Neufeldt

Community is close to ceramic artist, craftsperson, and facilitator Ciara’s heart. Her practice uses clay to bring people together with the “therapeutic aspects of tactile making”, Ciara shares. She first came to ceramics during university, where access to the department allowed her to fall in love with the practice. And so, Ciara is deeply cognisant of the importance of supporting those who struggle to access a ceramics studio due to various social factors. Opportunity and participation is where her focus lies, and Ciara used this residency to explore new ways of engaging with these areas. Her decorative tile projects, Make a Wish, and her work with the Spring Families Festival, were collaborations with Fine Cell Work – a charity which empowers those in prison to craft.

Ciara was drawn to the V&A’s quilt collection, specifically the HMP Wandsworth Quilt, commissioned in 2010 by Fine Cell Work. “I’m interested in the global histories of quilting and how they relate to community and collective making,” she shares. As a self-described “magpie”, Ciara’s residency and research allowed her to pull from many different materials and sources, such as the collection of jelly moulds, the Gilbert Collection, and the mosaic floor in the Cast Courts. Ciara is also collaborating with the V&A’s families team to further explore communal-making inspired by these collections.

To be surrounded by so much history and such a breadth of material had a huge impact on the creative journeys of Michael, Jess, and Ciara in their Adobe creative residency at the V&A. The values of accessibility, inclusivity and community were the foundations of their time spent together. Without this residency, their practices and personalities would not have impacted one another like they did, through sharing sessions, informal conversations and creative reflections. “We learnt a lot about pigeons from Ciara,” says Jess, “and now my Instagram feed is full of pigeons!”