Meet Letitia Inniss: Celebrating the strength and sacrifice of women in our communities

Letitia Inniss is one of 3 artists who worked with UAL's Creative team to create the collages used for our 2026 Black History Month campaign.

We spoke to Letitia to learn more about her creative journey, connection to Black British and Caribbean culture and the inspiration behind her collage for this year’s campaign.

Hi Letitia! Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background?

My name is Letitia. I’m from Tottenham and have Jamaican heritage. I went to school in Enfield and grew up around a lot of music. My family loved dancehall, dub music and rap and I was also heavily influenced by African American music.

I enjoyed music a lot growing up but I also loved drawing. My dad liked to draw and taught us how to sketch from a young age. I got into textiles through school, where I was able to take fashion and textiles courses and experiment with different materials. What made me stick with it was the sense of escapism.

Coming to LCF helped me develop my identity as an artist and understand what it meant to be an artist myself. I also find collage very freeing. As a textile artist, you often have to design your work before turning it into a piece of fabric or embroidery, so I use collage to explore different designs and ideas.

How did your journey with art begin?

I started doing art at school, particularly in the art department, but I found it quite demanding. I found the fashion department much more freeing because you could create as much work as you wanted and it could still be used somehow.

Again, art became a form of escape from home life. Then I realised that I was good at it and that I could continue with it at university.

At sixth form, I experimented with different things, including working with mannequins, print and heat press. When I came to LCF, I decided to specialise in embroidery, which was something new for me.

What themes or messages do you most often explore in your work?

My work is very centred around my identity as a Black British person and my Caribbean heritage. I draw a lot from Caribbean music and I also like outlining bodies and bringing communities together through sketching, collage and embroidery.

I look at the community around me and sketch from how it makes me feel and how I see myself fitting into it.

My work is also heavily inspired by fashion. I work with textiles so I think about the materials and clothing associated with different communities. For example, with dub culture, there is a lot of cotton jersey and denim. If I’m creating a scene inspired by the reggae community, I want the materials to reflect the people who listen to and make the music.

This year’s theme for Black History Month is ‘Honouring our Communities’. What does that theme mean to you personally?

For me, honouring our communities means paying homage to the people who have paved the way for us to explore our own identities and to the people who have created the music and art that we can resonate with.

For this collage, I chose to focus on mothers and motherhood. For me, mothers in our communities look after their own families but also look after the wider community. You always feel that motherly energy when you’re around it.

Growing up in North London, I saw that kind of care in everyday life. Someone might look out for you on the bus, ask where you’re going or check that you’re okay. When we were younger and playing outside, people would look after other people's children too.

My mum would look after children she might not have even met the parents of. She would feed them and look after them because they were part of the community. So, for me, honouring my community means honouring the women who keep part of our community going.

Is there a person or community that has shaped you as an artist or influenced your work?

I’d say the diversity of London as a whole. I feel like that’s a community in itself. If you’re from London, you understand how diverse it is and how different the areas can be.

I’m from North London, so I was also surprised by how many Black British and Caribbean people are based in South London. I wanted to explore that because I was quite unaware of what being Black British meant to me.

I knew I was British but I didn’t really know the term “Black British” until I was at university. Being at university gave me the opportunity to explore what it means to be Black British and how it connects to Caribbean and African cultures.

It also made me think about things like grime music. A lot of grime is part of Black British culture, but someone from the Caribbean or even African American communities might not necessarily know what grime is or resonate with it.

Growing up in Tottenham, I also remember seeing people like Skepta around the area. He lived near me, so I was experiencing that culture without necessarily realising that it was part of a wider movement. When I got to university, I wanted to explore it more, particularly through music, sketches and artwork.

What do you hope people take away from your collage after seeing it as part of UAL’s Black History Month campaign?

I hope it resonates with viewers and encourages them to give women and mothers the help and respect they deserve. I think a lot of mothers don’t receive enough support and are expected to do so much, including working and raising children. Single mothers in particular can have little or no support while still being expected to work. I just feel like people could take a moment to recognise and appreciate their sacrifice.

What made you put your work forward to be part of this year’s campaign?

I’ve created a few collages before and I’ve always felt that they could be inspirational to other people, but I’ve just kept them on my iPad.

This time, I felt like I could actually create a collage and share it with people. I hope that if people feel inspired by it, they’ll share that inspiration with others too.

What is one message that you'd like to give this Black History Month?

Black history is not only found in books and archives, but in the everyday lived experiences of our communities. This year's theme gives us the opportunity to recognise the care and sacrifices women have contributed, helping to shape communities. These women deserve to be celebrated and remembered!