FUSE is a partnership between Club Soda, SLiDE and Turf Projects, working together to create inclusive, accessible pathways into creative leadership and employment for learning disabled artists.

Through FUSE, we co-design and deliver training, mentoring, events, workshops and paid opportunities that put learning disabled creatives at the centre of decision-making and production. Our FUSE Champions are emerging leaders who take on roles as co-facilitators, event hosts, artists, and producers across dance, music, and visual arts.

Since launching in 2023, FUSE has:

  • Supported 15 learning disabled people through mentoring and skills development

  • Co-produced high-profile events including SoDaDa (inclusive cabaret nights) for learning disabled artists to present work to diverse audiences

  • Hosted 20 multi arts community workshops for learning disabled people

  • Led a residency at a special needs school with workshops that culminated in a SoDaDa at the Tate Modern

  • Strengthened collaboration between Croydon’s arts organisations, building a more inclusive cultural sector

Our vision is for Croydon to be a place where learning disabled people are visible leaders in the arts — shaping culture, not just participating in it.

  • "My voice is heard and my moves are seen here. It is the safest nightclub I have ever been to anywhere!"

  • "Felt like the agency was really on the artists and members and there was no hierarchy between audience and performers. It felt so important to be happening and was a space deliberately for people with learning disabilities."

  • "Working with Jen was just brilliant. Showing people who I am in my film, celebrating Croydon, I loved it, I want everyone to see it."

Our FUSE partners

SLiDE specialises in inclusive dance, delivering high-quality community classes and performance projects that improve wellbeing, confidence and belonging. Our practice places access, co-leadership and cultural democracy front and centre. FUSE has transformed SLiDE by embedding learning disabled artists as co-leaders, producers and facilitators across our programmes. The partnership with Club Soda and Turf Projects has also expanded our networks, visibility and creative ambition.

Turf is Croydon’s homegrown artist space and the first entirely artist-run contemporary art space in the borough. Based in Croydon’s Whitgift Shopping Centre, we put on free exhibitions workshops, provide affordable artist studios, run a free creative project space for locals & host a number of other local creative organisations and collectives, including MOSS, a collective of local learning disabled visual artists. The partnership with Club Soda and SLiDE has broadened opportunities for MOSS artists, providing tailored development opportunities and showcasing their work outside of gallery settings.