Vivienne Griffin was born in Dublin, Ireland. Griffin studied fine art at Hunter City University New York supported by a Fulbright Scholarship. Moving between experimental sound and art, through the digital and the human voice, Griffin is an anti-disciplinary artist who uses video, sound and sculpture. As a form of anti capitalism Griffin aims to reclaim the emancipatory prompts that technology can offer us through vocal processing, live performance, video and installations.
Adele Bertei is a writer, director, performer, and composer currently residing in Los Angeles, CA. She is the author of Peter and the Wolves (Smog Veil, 2020), Why Labelle Matters(University of Texas Press, 2021), Twist: Tales of a Queer Girlhood (ZE Books, 2023), and Universal Mother (Bloomsbury 33 1/3, 2025). Bertei was an original member of the critically lauded Contortions. She opened for writers such as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Kathy Acker among many others. Bertei acted in several underground films. Bertei was lead singer in the Bloods –America’s first openly queer band of women. She has performed and recorded as a backing vocalist and touring vocalist for many well known artists. As a solo artist she has recorded for the Geffen and Chrysalis labels, and sang leads on international dance and pop. Bertei worked as a behind-the-scenes director and ghostwriter, contributing concepts to hundreds of successful advertising campaigns. Bertei was granted two residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She studied with Gordon Lish in NYC at his infamous summer writing workshop in 2010, and was awarded the Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation fellowship at Tomales Bay in conjunction with UC Davis for Dorothy Allison’s writing workshop. She has created and facilitated songwriting workshops for homeless youth at My Friend’s Place in Hollywood, and as a member of Wayne Kramer’s Jail Guitar Doors, teaching songwriting to the incarcerated. She created a collective called WREN, Women’s Re-Entry Network to help alleviate the challenges of women being released from jails and prisons. Her next book, No New York: A Memoir of No Wave and the Women Who Shaped the Scene, will be released in early 2026 by Faber & Faber UK.
Smashing Time is the brainchild of Kurtis Lincoln and Ms Sharon Le Grand, a media conglomerate, currently taking the form of a monthly party at Ridley Road Market bar.
Kurtis Lincoln is an artist and Gogo boy based in East London (shock!). His work spans basically anything that pays the rent, but mainly utilising performance, music and painting. Working both solo and with his band ‘F*SLUR’ He has performed at a variety of different festivals and venues such as Glastonbury, Rough Trade and KOKO, as well as exhibiting both nationally and internationally.
Ms Sharon Le grand is a multi disciplinary artist and performer, who has been terrorising the east London drag scene and beyond for the past 10 years. With her fog horn like voice she has done everything from live art, to west end, to her self written musical ‘tomorrow is already dead. Performing everywhere and anywhere that will have her such as Glastonbury, latitude, the royal court, the national theatre, soho theatre her back garden and many more!
Sophie Sleigh-Johnson (1988) is a Southend-on-Sea-based writer. She holds a PhD from Goldsmiths College, London, where she teaches as an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art Critical Studies. Her new book is Code: Damp - An Esoteric Guide to British Sitcoms, published by Repeater. This ongoing research is also distributed across printmaking, spoken word, performance and cassette releases. She writes for publications including Darkside, The Leigh Times, and The London Drinker.
Rene Matić (b. 1997, Peterborough) is an artist, writer and poet based in London. Their work spans across photography, film and sculpture in a meeting place they describe as rude(ness) – to interrupt and exist in/between. Matić often takes their departure point from dance and music movements such as Northern soul, Ska and 2-Tone, using them as sites to queer and re-imagine the intimacies between West Indian and white working-class culture in Britain. Represented by Arcadia Missa and Chapter NY, Matić has shown with institutions such as CCA; Berlin, Kunsthalle Wien, South London Gallery; London, Quench Gallery; Margate, Bold Tendencies; London, Kunsthall Stavanger; Stanvergen, Studio Voltaire; London, and Saatchi Gallery; London. Matić’s work is held in several prominent collections, including Tate; London, Fondation Louis Vuitton; Paris, UK Government Art Collection; London, and Martin Parr Foundation; Bristol.