One Roof is Old Diorama Arts Centre’s annual festival for artists with experience of homelessness, and now a regular fixture at ODAC through the rollout of its weekly programme all year round.

ONE ROOF

ONE ROOF FESTIVAL 2026

This year’s festival, titled Bricks and Mortar, was all about bringing our skill sets, perspectives and ideas together to create work collaboratively.

One Roof, Old Diorama Arts Centre's programme for artists with lived experience of homelessness, held its two‑week festival from 19th to 30th January, running Mondays to Fridays. The programme offered a rich mix of arts workshops interwoven with mental health and wellbeing sessions, alongside an open studio. For the first time, we also introduced a dedicated project space, where we were able to research and develop two projects that will shape our year‑round weekly programme.

In the first week, we explored arts as activism, working with the stimulus word “unspoken”. In the second week, we shifted our focus to art for art’s sake, guided by the word “unknown”.

This year’s festival featured more theatre and storytelling‑based workshops than ever before, and created more opportunities for multi‑art‑form collaboration. Looking back, it felt like a year where the programme expanded in ambition, depth and creative possibility, and where the spirit of collective making truly came into its own.

To view the full festival gallery, documenting the workshops, project spaces, Jam Night, and all the art that was created, find it here.

If you have any questions about the festival or attending our weekly programme, drop us an email at oneroof@olddiorama.com, and our team will get back to you.

Funded by The Linbury Trust and The John Laing Charitable Trust.