HEAL Collective

People attending a presentation in an art gallery or conference room, with a large projected image of a giant puppet of a young girl in a city street scene.

HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT / ART-FUELLED LEARNING

A diverse group of women gathered around a table in a meeting room. One woman stands with her back to the camera, speaking or presenting to the group. The women are listening attentively, some are smiling, and some are taking notes. The room has white walls, a filing cabinet, a flip chart, and various papers and books on the table.

A woman with curly hair wearing a pink jacket standing in tall grass, facing away. A man with a beard, wearing a black hoodie and headphones, holding a professional video camera, filming her outdoors on a cloudy day with trees and a house in the background.

HEAL (Hostile Environment / Art-fuelled Learning) Collective is a migration arts learning collective that creates socially engaged creative projects and civic learning / leadership spaces with and for people affected by the UK immigration and asylum system.

Mobilising our skills as photographers, filmmakers, writers, curators, producers, researchers, spokespeople and community educators with and without lived migration experience, we empower migrant voices, transform civic understanding and strive for creative healing from social division and injustice.

We collaborate and consult across cultural, educational, community and civic systems, to create spaces of horizontal learning in which community voice can lead.

OUR PRACTICE

From photography to curation, writing to production, HEAL explores the creative potential of multiple artforms to offer spaces of representation, empowerment and amplification to people affected by the UK immigration and asylum system.
We co-create films, exhibitions, anthologies, performances, creative learning programmes that enable displaced communities to shape narratives and transform visions. Active researchers and practitioners in the field, our work is guided by the principles of equity and care. Many of HEAL’s creative practitioners bring their own lived experience to the table in this work.
We partner with schools, galleries, cinemas, community groups, third sector organisations and prominent cultural platforms to make space for this work.
View our portfolio for examples of our work, and contact us to explore how we can bring our creative skills to your organisation or project.
HEAL’s practice and thinking is underpinned by rigorous academic training in migration arts, Refugee Humanities, systems change and social justice discourses, intersecting around decoloniality, feminisms, queerness and climate justice.
All three of its directors have PhDs in the field; between us, we have over 19 years’ experience of work across universities, and have produced more than 30 publications. We are passionate about making these insights matter beyond academia and apply our insights to real-world research contexts, including consultancy and participatory action projects with displaced communities, NGOs, social impact organisations and cultural institutions.
View our portfolio for examples of our work, and contact us to explore how we can bring our creative skills to your organisation or project.
HEAL's Learning and Engagement work is rooted in critical pedagogy and decoloniality, mobilising migration arts to facilitate systems change. We create programmes that center the lived experience of individuals impacted by the UK asylum system, fostering creative paths to healing.
Our practice champions equity through participatory co-creation, empowering marginalised voices to shape their own narratives and achieve collective amplification. We offer workshops and resources, driven by years of teaching and facilitating around intersectionality, feminisms, queerness and climate justice discourses. We believe approach transforms community understanding and dismantles structural injustice.
View our portfolio for examples of our work, and contact us to explore how we can bring our creative skills to your organisation or project.