Our Makers-in-Residence are creative practitioners with a strong connection to Waltham Forest, who are provided a space in our shared studios with access to our wood and metal workshops for three months. Some may be aspiring to launch a creative business, eager to develop technical skills, or pursue a career within a craft and education environment, so we offer them space and guidance to a navigate a pivotal career transition. Inductions are provided as well as regular support sessions with our team.
We first set up our residency programme in 2021 to support early career makers to get access to space and tools, support, and opportunity to build their network.
Current Maker-In-Residence:
Fawziyah Rahman, Spring/Summer 2026
Previous Makers-In-Residence
Alex Hanotu, Spring 2026
Alex studies architecture and works in that space between design, furniture making and material experimentation. He’s big on functional pieces that people can genuinely engage with and has been shifting his practice toward reuse, found materials and low‑impact making.
Now he’s here to push things further with proper space, tools and time to explore both woodwork and metalwork in a way that hasn’t been possible in his back garden or his university workshop.
Hamza Aldlimi, Autumn 2025/Spring 2026
Hamza is a London-based metal sculptor and experimental communicator. His work is bold, research driven, and sometimes satirical, using horror and disruption to interrogate systems of control and turn complex ideas into visceral forms. This residency at Blackhorse Workshop has been his first ever – a chance to push boundaries, try new materials, and feel at home in a community of makers. Since joining, Hamza’s work has even featured at London Fashion Week. Hamza is now a permanent resident here and has started teaching as one of our newest metal facilitators.
Ayesha Sureya, Summer 2025
Ayesha is an interdisciplinary artist and jeweller, born and bred in London, whose work forms in the intersections of metal, textiles and technology. They explore animistic object making, acting as a methodology for expressing devotional practice, decontextualised adornment and (in)significant things that float in open ended and ongoing dialogues between the body and psychomagic states. During their residency, Ayesha’s time was spent experimenting with steel and wood to create large scale sculptures for their first solo exhibition.
Nina Ołtarzewska, Winter/Spring 2025
French, London-based artist Nina Ołtarzewska joined us at the Workshop until April 2025, and now joins us as a metalworking tutor, running the Feminist Welding Club. She earned a Fine Art MA from Chelsea College of Art, received graduate awards from Pollen Studios, PS², Platform Arts, the University of Atypical and Bbeyond; was chosen for Flax Art’s Emerging Artists Programme; and received three awards from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She joins us having already worked with several project spaces across London and has received her first award from Arts Council England.
Shannon Swinburn – Autumn 2024
Shannon Swinburn is a Textile Artist dedicated to exploring the intrinsic connections between gender, textiles, and modern-day computing. Her work aims to highlight the often-overlooked contributions of women in emergent technology, utilising speculation, counterfactual histories, and material storytelling to bring these narratives to the forefront. @shanswinburn
Our previous Makers in Residence also include:
- Theo Blackburn, 2024
- Jamie Hammil, 2024
- Abel Holsborough, 2022
- Chanelle Brown, 2021