This year, the Mead Fellowship Awards ignited a wave of creativity across University of the Arts London, drawing a stunning 126 applications from students and graduates spanning 81 different courses. The energy and ambition were palpable. After careful deliberation, the judges selected 5 exceptional projects, awarding Fellowships to 7 brilliant graduates who are poised to make a significant impact.
Ready to be inspired? Meet the visionary winners and the projects they will bring to life.
Elie Al-Marji and Weronika Turowska
MA Biodesign, Central Saint Martins
De-Lab
Imagine a world where biodesign isn't locked away in high-tech labs, but is a vibrant, open-source movement thriving in community spaces and home kitchens. That’s the future Elie and Weronika are building with De-Lab. This groundbreaking project is a hybrid publication and interactive exhibition designed to tear down the barriers of science, making hands-on work with living systems—like mycelium, bacteria, and algae—truly accessible to all.
By blending DIY experimentation with heritage crafts and regenerative design, De-Lab empowers creatives, students, and grassroots communities to create their own ‘home labs’. Their book will be a vital resource, packed with essays, illustrated case studies, and DIY experiments, transforming biodesign from a niche specialty into a democratic tool for environmental and cultural change.
Microalgae under the microscope, Grow Lab, Central Saint Martins, Photo by Weronika Turowska, April 2024
Receiving the MEAD Fellowship is an incredible opportunity for us to push biodesign out of the lab and into the hands of more creatives. With De-Lab, we aim to democratise access to working with living systems, showing how regenerative design can be a powerful tool for both environmental action and cultural change. This grant makes possible the kind of research and public engagement that can turn biodesign from a niche practice into a shared movement.
Check out their websites here: Weronika and Elie.
Elinor Lang
BA Fashion Buying and Merchandising, London College of Fashion
Not of the Ragged Sort
Step into a world where English folk custom is reborn through the language of contemporary craft. Not of the Ragged Sort is a multidisciplinary project that gives new life to the characters of a traditional Mummers play from the Ryburn Valley. Elinor Lang is translating these six archetypal characters—from Saint George to Beelzebub—from fleeting costumes into enduring pieces of furniture and textile art: handcrafted chairs, stools, tapestries, and cushions.
This is more than a design project; it's an act of cultural preservation and evolution. By creating a tangible, physical presence for a vanishing tradition, and even crafting a new, seventh Mummer costume for modern May Day celebrations, Elinor explores powerful themes of loss, memory, and renewal, inviting us all to consider our role in keeping community stories alive.
Doc Rowe, n.d. / Hampshire Mummers in the first half of the 20th century
I am so incredibly honoured to be a recipient of the Mead Fellowship. Growing up within the folk traditions of West Yorkshire has shaped me as a maker, and this award gives me the chance to honour those roots while stepping forward as part of a new wave of English folk art. It is both a personal boost of confidence and a professional artistic opportunity to share the joy and resilience of these traditions with wider audiences, and to contribute to their future. Thank you!
Check out their website here.
Lara Fullalove and Casper Webb
BA Film Practice, London College of Communications
Dig My Grave! (formerly called Kitty Jay)
Prepare to be captivated by a folk horror short that unearths the dark soil of grief and memory. Dig My Grave!, written and directed by Lara Fullalove and produced by Casper Webb, is inspired by the haunting Dartmoor legend of Jay’s Grave. The film follows a grieving ten-year-old girl, Ruby, who forms a bond with the lonely spirit of the grave, leading to a chilling act of sacrifice when the sacred site is threatened.
This is folklore for a modern age, using the genre’s power to reflect on generational trauma and the historical erasure of women's stories. By reimagining a local legend, the film creates a poignant space to explore contemporary conversations about loss and resilience.
Soussons Common Woods, Dartmoor; one of the potential locations. Photo by Raff Brodie (@rafferty.brodie), 2025.
Casper and I are so grateful to have been awarded the Mead Fellowship. The legend of Kitty Jay has been close to me since my childhood, and this support gives our incredible team the chance to make Dig My Grave! with the care it deserves – honouring my local heritage while exploring themes of grief, memory and resilience. It’s also a rare opportunity for us to continue developing our creative practice together, building on the partnerships we began at university.
Check out their websites here: Casper and Lara.
Luciana Ribeiro Dal Ri
MA Contemporary Photography; Practices and Philosophies, Central Saint Martins
Synaesthetic Cosmovisions
Synaesthetic Cosmovisions is a profound journey of reclamation. Luciana will create a short experimental film in collaboration with members of an Indigenous community in southern Brazil, reconnecting with the roots her great-great-grandmother was violently severed from during colonial incursions. This project is a personal healing of that undocumented trauma and a recovery of suppressed cultural memory.
As a synaesthete and neurodivergent artist, Luciana will employ a nonlinear, cross-sensory approach to storytelling. The film, a poetic collage of video, sound, and symbolism, aims to evoke Indigenous knowledge systems, consciously challenging the objectifying gaze of traditional ethnographic documentation in favour of a respectful, co-creative process.
Brazil 3, Luciana Ribeiro Dal Ri
Submitting my project has been an intense and rewarding journey. I am grateful for what I have learned and for the guidance I have received. It taught me to read between the lines, to understand the intentions and details that make a project truly viable. Now I have the chance to realise a long-held dream: to connect with my ancestors through art, in collaboration with their descendants.
Check out their website here.
Rebecca Wickham
MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communications
A thin line casts a long shadow
Rebecca’s project takes us to the vast Australian outback to trace the path of the Dingo Fence—a nearly 6000km-long wire mesh barrier that is the longest of its kind in the world. More than just a fence, it is a colonial artefact violently scored into the landscape, with a severe and ongoing ecological impact.
A thin line casts a long shadow is a multi-media body of work that will follow this stark divide. Through photography, archival research, sound recordings, and camera-less methods, Rebecca will examine the fence’s physical and psychological legacy, exploring the deep scars of colonialism that are still visible in the land itself. The project will culminate in an exhibition in Australia in 2026.
Google Earth
I’m so thankful, and thrilled, to receive this support from the Mead Fellowship. It means so much to know that my work holds value, on a wider level than just the personal, and this has really boosted my confidence in myself and my creative practice. The application and feedback process I also found incredibly helpful, and as it pushes you to think very deeply about your ideas, as well as the practicalities of carrying out the project.
Check out their website here.
Please join us in celebrating these extraordinary creatives. We cannot wait to see how their Mead Fellowship projects will unfold and shape the creative landscape of tomorrow.
Do you have an ambitious dream project? If you are a final year UAL student, or your course ended in 2025, you could apply for up to £10,000 in 2026. Find out more here.