Belfast Design Week is made possible by the community of creatives willing to share their knowledge, networks and spaces, extending the hand of friendship and lending their support in so many countless big - and small - ways.
Here are some of the people making things happen at BDW26!
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Christine James
Belfast Design Week / Blick Shared Studios
Christine is the founder and CEO of Blick Shared Studios which provides workspace, services and support for creatives in Belfast. Blick is an independent, non-profit social enterprise with 3 creative studio spaces that was set up in 2007.Christine is the Co-Founder/Director of Belfast Design Week.
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Karishma Kusurkar
Belfast Design Week / Karishma’s World / Venture Folk
Karishma is a multidisciplinary designer whose work spans a broad range of disciplines, from fashion and farming to placemaking and museums. Her interests include developing the creative economy, building sustainable businesses and facilitating accessible knowledge sharing.
Karishma is the Co-Founder/Director of Belfast Design Week and Venture Folk.
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Lisa D. Hinz
Organisation: Dominican University of California
Lisa D. Hinz, PhD (Board Certified and Registered Art Therapist) is a clinical psychologist and art therapist. She is a professor and director of the doctoral program in art therapy psychology at Dominican University of California.
She is currently working on the second edition of, Beyond Self-Care for Helping Professionals: The Life Enrichment Model.
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Illustrators North
Illustrators North is a professional organization founded by award-winning illustrators Ashwin Chacko and Clive McFarland with the vision to build a community of thriving illustrators in Northern Ireland, via events and meet-ups and more!
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Gerry Scullion
Humana Design / This is HCD Podcast
Gerry Scullion is a service design practitioner, trainer, and host of the This is HCD podcast.
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Rachel Dietkus
Social Workers Who Design
Rachael Dietkus is a social worker, designer, and founder of Social Workers Who Design. She works at the intersection of trauma, care, public service, and technology, helping teams build more ethical, humane systems. Her practice brings social work values into design, research, and civic innovation through strategy, teaching, and facilitation.
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Gregg Reid
Hundred Studio
Gregg is the Creative Director of B Corp certified Hundred Studio. You could call him an art school dropout, but he didn’t even get in. He believes that no matter how good you might be, it takes taste and cultural awareness to make a difference. He hates AI, and loves West Ham.
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Dima Kiselev
Belfast Design / Kiselev Global
Product and experience designer with over 20 years of experience delivering high-impact digital products across global markets.
Founder of the Belfast Design Community, event organiser, and advocate for continuous learning. Combines design, strategy, and performance optimisation to create measurable business outcomes and intuitive user experiences. Driven by curiosity.
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Lisa Smyth & Christine McKee
Shesaid Design
Lisa and Christine share 50 years combined experience. Having worked together professionally, they united in 2018 to form Shesaid, a female led, boutique design and branding agency.
Working with organisations big and small as their creative and communications partner, they are award winning problem-solvers with a team of highly skilled, can-doers.
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Caroline Gilliland
Mural + LUMA Institute
Caroline is an award-winning human-centered designer and change champion with a decade of cross-industry experience spanning R&D, product design, sustainability, accessibility, and leadership in a number of industries.
She specializes in emerging technologies, trauma-informed design and inclusion. As a LUMA Instructor, she scales design and guides teams toward better outcomes.
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Ashwin Chacko
Illustrators North
Ashwin Chacko is a positively playful award-winning, author-illustrator and motivational speaker on a mission to champion creativity and shape culture through talks, books, videos and workshops.
He specialises in positive visual storytelling, helping audiences connect through bold illustration, expressive characters, and designs that captures the social interactions driving culture.
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Aoife McAteer & Gráinne Mullan
Kitsch Sisters
Aoife McAteer and Gráinne Mullan are the founders of Kitsch Sisters, a Belfast-based creative studio centred on creative self-care.
Through workshops, events, and community-led projects, they create welcoming spaces where people can slow down, make with their hands, and connect - turning craft into a tool for memory, expression, and belonging.
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Michelle Dolan
Rejig
Michelle is passionate about understanding people & culture. As a creative facilitator with an MA anthropology, she utilises methods from social science, CPS & design thinking to enable organisations to connect creatively, to gain new perspectives as they problem solve collaboratively, & to stretch their imaginations as they uncover the insights which drive innovation.
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Pamela Whitaker
Belfast School of Art, Ulster University
Pamela Whitaker is a lecturer in art psychotherapy at the Belfast School of Art. She is an advocate for people asserting the potentials of where they find themselves - identifying life materials, curating lifescapes and being a maker in their studios of experience.
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Craig Norwood
Hundred Studio
Craig is the Design Director of B Corp certified Hundred Studio. A graphic designer who’s managed to sneak his work into Dubai, London, New York, Dublin, and his very own Belfast. He’s delivered brand, digital, and experiential projects for just about every type of business. Big on ideas, serious about design, and more than happy to be a realist when it comes to the creative industry.
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Kate McILhagger-Ng
KMN Creative Consulting
Kate is a Creative, Product & Lifestyle Specialist and founder of KMN Creative Consulting. With experience across furniture, interiors and homeware, she helps brands shape thoughtful products, refine collections and connect design vision with practical delivery.
With an international background, her work blends commercial insight, material curiosity and a strong appreciation for craftsmanship and everyday living.
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Dave Loder
Edinburgh College of Art
Dave Loder is Programme Director for MA Interior, Architectural & Spatial Design at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh and convenes the Image | Imaging | Interior research cluster.
With Pau Obrador Pons (Northumbria University) and Maartje Roelofsen (Wageningen University), Dave is currently undertaking the British Academy/Leverhulme funded project ‘Digital mediations of home through short-term rental platforms.’
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Clive McFarland
Illustrators North
Clive McFarland is a children’s author and illustrator from Omagh, Northern Ireland. He creates graphic, character-led picture books with clear visual storytelling and strong read-aloud rhythm.
His work focuses on simple, emotionally resonant ideas, combining expressive illustration with carefully shaped text to create engaging, distinctive books for young readers.
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Gillian Colhoun
Future Island-Island Research Project at Ulster University
Gillian is a writer, strategist and creative facilitator working across design, place and nature connection.
She is Strategic Development Manager for Future Island-Island at Ulster University and runs Kindlings, a practice rooted in creative writing and wellbeing.
Her work brings communities, research and imagination together through thoughtful collaboration.
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Rachel McIlgorm
Storybox NI
Founder of Storybox, a purpose led business using gifting and creativity for social impact. We support local makers and social enterprises, helping individuals and organisations make more conscious choices. Alongside gifting, Storybox operates a retail hub and hosts workshops that connect people, support small businesses and celebrate meaningful, story-led products.
storyboxni.com
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Jenny Jackson-Smyth
Future Island-Island Research Project at Ulster University
Jenny is a Researcher within the Future Island-Island project based in Belfast. She has a background in Architecture and a strong record of global engagement, including time teaching in Hong Kong.
Jenny is also a practising artist whose work has been internationally recognised; selected as a finalist in Architizer’s 'One Drawing Challenge' in both 2020 and 2021, with recent work displayed at the Royal Ulster Academy’s 144th Annual Exhibition.
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Dr Susann Power
Ulster University
Susann is a researcher, educator and activist scholar. She teaches and writes about sustainability, ethics and entrepreneurship.
Susann has a particular passion for the beach. As a keen beach cleaner, Susann has lifted over 500kg of litter from Northern Ireland’s beaches and works on an ocean plastics research project called ‘Beach Clean 2.0’.
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Fiona McDonnell
Freelance illustrator
Fiona McDonnell (she/her) is a freelance Irish illustrator from Belfast, her illustration practice blends classic comic book and contemporary design motifs to create bold and distinctive illustrations.
Fiona has worked with a wide variety of commercial and private clients, and specialises in advertising, branding, editorial and heritage projects.
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Nina Liebhaber
Ulster University
Nina is a researcher and educator specialised in young people's experiences and dreams in times of crises.
Her work is driven by the possibility of radical change and a particular interest in entanglements and utopian theory.
She also studies more-than-human and otherwise marginalised perspectives, contributing to studies of transformative processes.
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Colin Maguire
krow Ireland
krow Ireland is a full-service marketing and communications agency, uniquely connected to a UK wide communications group. We deliver integrated solutions across advertising, branding, strategic planning, media planning and buying, content management, creative direction, design, copywriting and digital solutions.
Colin is Creative Director and packaging specialist with 30 years’ experience delivering standout, idea-led and commercially effective design. He leads projects end-to-end with precision, combining strategic thinking and craft to create impactful brand and packaging solutions while driving quality, consistency, and strong client partnerships.
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Crown Creative
Creative Agency
Crown Creative is a A globally-minded, hospitality-obsessed creative agency shaping unforgettable experiences through strategy-led design and bold storytelling With full service in-house studios in Belfast, London and New York, we are a tight-knit team of designers, thinkers, artists and strategists that takes a collaborative approach to all things branding, interiors and design.
With a proud history of creating brands and spaces that not only flourish functionally but also inspire, we understand the balance between practicality and crafting something unforgettable.
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Silvia Mandic
Ulster University, Belfast School of Art
Silvia specialises in Moving Image; Motion and has helped the Foundation Studies students at Belfast School of Art bring interactivity to their work featured at BDW26.
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CineArch
Cinematic Architecture, QUB
The CineArch design studio explores Architecture through a cinematic approach, blending film and design as integrated tools for spatial thinking, in the proposal of a Peace Museum in Belfast. This exhibition brings together drawings, models, and films exploring how cinematic thinking can shape architecture as an experiential space.
CineArch:
Gul Kacmaz Erk + Benji Connell
Holly Desmond Fujita, Leanna Logue-farren, Merieme Tighiouart, Timothy Low, Amy Kearney, Blanche Cases, Owen Monagle, Samantha Somers, Mariam Usmani, Lily Blute, Chloe Mccabe, Louise Mcchesney, Ellie-Rose Kelly
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Clara Jean Potts
Graft Collective
Clara Potts once thought she might become a painter, though her skills never progressed far beyond stick figures. Briefly steered toward law, she quickly realised it wasn’t for her, preferring to spend lectures reading Samuel Beckett. She later graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in English before moving into curating and styling across fashion, interiors, and food. Her work includes styling CMAT, collaborating with Marimekko at Copenhagen Fashion Week, contributing to London and Paris Fashion Weeks, and working on campaigns for Pellador, Stable of Ireland, and Triona Design. Her practice sits at the intersection of visual culture, contemporary art, literary criticism, and art history.
After four years in Dublin and a period in Denmark, she returned to Belfast determined to build the creative energy and community she had experienced elsewhere. Founded in 2025, Graft Collective is her Belfast-based, events-led platform bringing together creatives across Northern Ireland through accessible, cross-disciplinary programming. Spanning writing, photography, food, and more, Graft creates spaces beyond the gallery where work can be experienced, shared, and celebrated—supporting artists while fostering a sustainable, community-driven cultural scene.
Season
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Season ✦
“The seasons remind us that thriving requires rhythm, not relentless output. We can’t work at full throttle forever. As humans, we need time to process and reflect on the world we live in. Revisiting how we work, so it becomes more human, is not a luxury. It is the work.”
“A shift in perspective, where small changes open up new creative directions.”
“Season means getting out of winter! Without being too obvious, it’s definitely about embracing the change in the air. Refreshing our thinking, adjusting perspective, recalibrating the senses, and changing routines can be the biggest hurdle to any creative paralysis that sets in.”
“A season to me is a current state within a larger ecosystem or journey. Something that comes into visibility rather than existing quietly beneath the surface.It is temporary but meaningful, inviting presence, learning, and intention with what is within reach.
A season is shaped by environment, energy, and what’s ready to emerge from seeds previously planted.”
“Season” makes me think about the nature of time. Chronos is the time we measure and manage. Kairos is the time we sense: the right time for something to unfold.
Season, for me, is about living a little closer to kairos, attending to the deeper rhythm beneath deadlines, and noticing when things need care, harvest, rest or patience. It feels good to hold both in balance, but I rarely do.”
“Season is about memory and change—holding onto what matters while making space for something new. Through creativity, we mark moments, gather with others, and create memories that stay with us.”
“Seasons represent more than markers of time, as each season goes by, it leaves a trace of growth and adds depth to the world around us.
Like seasons, peace in Belfast has unfolded gradually, shaped over time through moments of conflict and recovery, contributing to an ongoing process of reconciliation.”
“Season, to me, is about movement - the quiet, often unspoken shifts in how we live, make, and see. It’s the rhythm between staying and leaving, between the pull to go elsewhere, and the choice to build something where you are - that sense of in-betweenness, of being slightly nomadic. Having spent time between Dublin and Denmark, I’ve come to understand season as a kind of creative temperature: periods of absorbing, observing, and learning, followed by moments of output - of grafting something tangible from what’s been gathered. Those cycles ground me, wherever I am. There are seasons of solitude, and seasons of collaboration, where ideas grow through others: stylists, writers, artists, cooks.
Returning to Belfast marked a different kind of season; defined by staying, by making space rather than searching for it. Graft Collective came out of that shift - part response to a gap, part instinct. So, for me, a season is a context for making. It shapes what feels possible, what feels necessary. It asks: what does this moment call for, and what are you willing to build within it? In a culture driven by speed, immediacy, and AI, paying attention to seasonality feels more important than ever - from the food we eat to how we allow ourselves time to rest, reset, and create in rhythm, rather than constantly produce.”
“A chapter in the story of your life to pause, reflect, and begin again with fresh energy.”
“Seasons surprise me every year with their colours, scents and varied temperatures. They are a great reminder of the world’s processual becoming and yet uncovered potentialities.”
“Season = adaptability and change.”
“‘Season’ to me means rebirth and renewal, seasons are both inevitable and entirely dependable. I love how each season brings an opportunity for a fresh start, no mater how life is going, there’s always a chance to start over.”
“Seasons shape how we experience the world - and they can mirror the rhythm of a career too.
Spring is a time to explore and learn.
Summer is for building and delivering.
Autumn invites reflection and adjustment.
Winter gives space to rest and rethink.
The key is remembering that none of these phases are fixed. They shift, evolve, and return in new ways over time.
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“Season makes me think about rhythm, change, and the conditions needed for things to flourish. Much like the seasons, not every moment is meant for pushing forward; some seasons ask us to listen more closely, rest, grieve, tend, rebuild, or repair. For me, season is a reminder that care, like design, depends on learning how to respond to what this moment truly needs from us.”
“Season is a design of life with conjuring interludes - the cultivation of ands.”
“Seasons represent change – whether you’re waiting for one to end, or another to move in, it’s a consistent and reliable movement. Summer is the best one.”
“When I hear the word “season” I think of adding spices and herbs to food to make them tasty.
We can all use some “seasoning” to enrich our lives!”
“To me season is an everchanging spectrum of light; dull, dappled, dazzling, dim.
To me season refers to the fleeting, colourful, filmroll of our human journey. ”
“Season speaks to where we are in the cycle of our journey, both personally and professionally. When I was younger, I saw life as something linear, always striving for the next goal, destination, or milestone. With time and experience, the idea of seasons feels far more true.
Some seasons are about learning and momentum, others about change, patience or starting again. I’ve come to see each one as holding its own value and lessons. Every season brings something to build on, and often the quieter seasons are the ones that shape us most.”
“Last year a farmer friend gave me an illustration of the seasons of re-rooting a plant. I was in my own process of re-rooting in Belfast. At first the plant is unstable. There is a shedding of what no longer serves them, followed by a necessary dormancy. The roots that were grown elsewhere begin to search for nutrients in their new environment.
With patience, the plant will begin to blossom; timidly at first. Over time the new roots intertwine with the old creating a strength and stability that would never have been possible without uprooting in the first place. Its yield is ten-fold.”