ONE ROOF FESTIVAL 2025

2025 brought with it the third One Roof Festival – an annual celebration of artists with experience of homelessness – hosted here at ODAC. The festival itself – in one form or another! - dates back to 2016 with founder David Tovey. One Roof became an in-house programme at ODAC from 2022, but the history of a partnership between Old Diorama Arts Centre and artists of no fixed abode goes back a lot farther than that. Pre-dating 1981 and our charitable status, the original Diorama building opposite Regent’s Park was a well-known squat and creative hub for artists in the area and drawing in visitors from further afield through its reputation as a notorious party spot. We try where possible to take inspiration from the original Diorama model when we put on the One Roof Festival - open to all, and all creativity celebrated.

This was our third year running One Roof as a two-week-long creation festival: featuring a huge spectrum of art forms and techniques; from workshops in Boal’s ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’ to shadow puppetry; clothing customisation to spoken word poetry. The open studio was bustling with focus and enthusiasm, as seasoned artists honed their craft alongside beginners, sharing ideas and opinions; and Lisa Ogun’s open-all-hours Craft Corner proved a popular new addition to the programme, with opportunities to work with felt and papier mâché, as well as more complicated endeavours involving crochet and resin. 

This year’s One Roof Festival felt different. Everything felt ramped up a notch - the workshops longer, and the laughs louder. The hot lunch – served daily on the premises by Saher and Nida from Lucknow 2 London – was some of the best we’d ever tasted, and the sisters from Brixton were snowed under with compliments and requests for seconds or thirds, which they happily provided! Their evenings were then spent devising the menu for the next day, and at their last estimate they had prepared and served over 500 meals across the festival period. 

We welcomed 89 different attendees to over 30 diverse workshops, with a massive overall participant attendance of over 600 across the morning and afternoon sessions over both weeks. At time of writing, the exhibition is yet to take place but – based on the success of our End of Festival Jam Night - we anticipate a great turn out of attendees and facilitators, local residents and fans of the arts, all keen to see the work that has been created by our talented community.

This year featured a spectacular team of creative producers and facilitators, as well as some faces from One Roofs-past, now working as members of the production team, catering staff, or facilitating their own workshops! One particularly recognisable face was Bahja Mahamed, whom we first met at One Roof 2023, and who worked this year as our (unofficial) social media fairy, while also managing to turn out some beautiful crafts and painting. Among the other returning One Roofers who took on their own workshops were Cristina and Pete (Earth Puppets), Clare Barstow (devised theatre and Fri 17th Jan’s performance of ‘Art for Art’s Sake’), and Dan and Lancelot (shadow puppetry). Plus, former One Roof producers of 2023, Justin and Lainie were back: the former running spoken word and zine workshops, along with hosting our final night celebration; the latter heading up our Welfare Team, ensuring that our attendees felt supported and safe. To our delight, former facilitator and director of Response Ability Theatre, Nell Hardy, joined the production team, and we hope to continue working with and learning from her as much as possible going forward.

The final three days of One Roof went with a bang, as we welcomed the Third Annual International Arts and Homelessness Summit. Over 100 visitors and panellists were in attendance from 22nd-24th Jan, with an as-yet-unknown number also joining online from as far afield as Mexico, Brazil, and North America. Panel discussions covered subjects as wide-ranging as trauma, photographic representation, and what makes a good quality arts and homelessness project. It was fitting for the summit to take place during One Roof, as every co-producer of the festival so far has come via the Leadership Scheme run by summit organisers Arts & Homelessness International - clear proof that the scheme is working.

The summit fit seamlessly into the spirit of One Roof, adhering to our policy of encouraging open-door wandering from room to room, with the result that One Roofers took in panel discussions and networking sessions, while attendees to the summit joined workshops in gel plate printing and response poetry. This was emblematic of the blend that One Roof had created: actors drizzling inks, painters strumming ukuleles; costumiers serving curry, and even some graffiti artists out during the day! One way or another, everyone found their own path, and the result was a warm and friendly atmosphere, absolutely bouncing with talent and joy. 

When we say that this year’s One Roof Festival felt different, we mean it in the absolute best way, and that is thanks in no small part to the support of our generous donors. With funding behind us, we were not only able to produce a top-notch festival - we were able to do so with the knowledge that organisations outside of ODAC and this community cared and believed in the project as well. A genuine sense of investment, in every sense, for which we cannot give enough thanks to The Linbury Trust, Arts Council England, the Tedworth Charitable Trust, and our anonymous private donor(s). 

With the 2025 festival behind us and the exhibition ahead, it is easy to get caught up in the magnificent output of work from the festival: the intricate crafts, bold paintings and soul-bearing poetry is almost too much to take in - though we will endeavour to share as much of it as possible when we launch the exhibition at ODAC, 7pm-9pm on Fri 31st Jan (on display until the end of February). However, we hope that visitors to the exhibition manage to see beyond the irrefutable evidence of skill and talent and remember that the work is a product – and not the point – of a community brought together by a love of arts and culture, enjoying the company of like-minded people in what we hope is a returning collective of passionate artists, united under One Roof.

Thank you to Alice Horsley for her fantastic photography of the festival.