Collaborators

To find out more about becoming a KIN collaborator, download our information pack.

Kambe Events Ltd

The makers of Shambala Festival!

Kambe Events is an award-winning event production team based in Bristol with over 20 years experience of producing creatively driven festivals and campaigns. Our flagship event Shambala Festival is well respected both for its musical and artistic output as well as its pioneering and award winning sustainable event production practices. Over the course of our history we have provided a
platform for thousands of musical and creative practitioners, and enabled them to develop and showcase their work across all our various stages and venues.

Our portfolio ranges from event consultancy and industry training, to producing and managing green-field music and arts festivals and large scale city events with over 80,000 attendees.

KIN is owned and produced by Kambe Events Ltd.

Arnolfini

KIN will be taking place at the Arnolfini, one of Europe’s leading centres for the contemporary arts.

Founded in 1961, this iconic building, located on the harbourside in the heart of Bristol is dedicated to producing and presenting visual arts, performance, dance, film, music and events, underpinned by a commitment to a dynamic civic role in the city. From 8-11th November, KIN will take over the full complex, comprised of airy art gallery spaces, theatres, an auditorium, café and bookshop, as well as stunning outdoor space by the water.

University of Bristol

Dr Keir Williams is a creative technologist, educator and researcher. Underpinning his approach to all three is a philosophy that recognises the potential for art, design and technologies to make and take on practical and effective roles in wider society and culture. Keir and his team from the Centre for Innovation at the University Of Bristol, will programme and manage two gallery spaces at KIN, called
the Brain and the Heart. Here various ‘makers in residence’ will work and interact with audience members producing work that reacts to, records, remakes and disseminates the emerging issues and experiences from the wider event.

Rife

The Watershed’s Rife project – an online magazine for under 24s in Bristol which showcases young peoples’ stories, opinions and ideas. Rife engages with young people across the city via workshops, events and content co-creation in arts, community and educational settings, and provides paid creative opportunities for young people, providing them with the skills, confidence and networks to succeed.

KIN is committed to providing high quality artistic content to new audiences. Our partnership with Rife Magazine, Bristol’s youth-led online platform, is to engage with a younger demographic and co-curate content that is devised for young people by young people. Rife engages with young people across the city via workshops, events and content co-creation in arts, community and educational settings, and provides paid creative opportunities for young people, providing them with the skills, confidence and networks to succeed.

The Rules

The Rules is a collective of organisers and activists that aim to address the root causes of inequality and focus on building citizen power. Across our various social networks you’ll find conversations and collaborations between individuals and organisations who share a belief that the capitalist system needs to be transcended.

Museum of Happiness

The Museum of Happiness is a pioneering non-profit, on a mission to make the science and art of happiness fun and accessible for everyone.  The project’s journey began two years ago when Vicky Johnson, along with co-founder Shamash Alidina, launched the world’s first pop-up Museum of Happiness in Spitalfields Market. Its programme of pay-it-forward classes and donation-based events, including weekly mindfulness classes, yoga and art therapy, attracted some 7,000 visitors.

Advaya

Advaya Initiative is an environmental and holistic wellbeing platform created by Ruby Reed and Christabel Reed, two sisters, activists and yoga teachers who see the ecological, social, political and personal crises of civilization as interconnected and as an opportunity to evolve, to come together and co-create. At KIN, Advaya will be running a Yoga for Social Change workshop, and a session on Re-echanting Your Every Day. Sign us up!

Julie’s Bicycle

Julie’s Bicycle are a London based charity that support the creative community to act on climate change and environmental sustainability. They believe that the creative community is uniquely placed to transform the conversation around climate change and translate it into action. Julie’s Bicycle have a deep engagement with the arts and cultural sector, working with organisations and independent professionals across the UK and internationally to embed environmental sustainability into their operations, creative work and business practice.

Community CoLab

In an ever changing world where change happens at an ever growing rate, the power of participation, collaboration, co-creation and co-design is key in building a sustainable future. Community CoLab support groups, collectives, projects, communities, NGOs, private and public organisations wanting to explore innovative ways of meeting, engaging, participating, designing projects and leading.

The Bristol Cable

KIN co-creator The Bristol Cable is shaking up local journalism, reporting on the stories behind the headlines and putting Bristolians in charge of their media. No barons or hedge-funds, they are powered by over 2,000 members who all have a say and own an equal share in their media co-operative. This means they publish stories that matter to the public not big business, uncovering wrongdoing and injustice in our city.

Accurate and impactful journalism that holds power to account is expensive, takes time and can be risky. Thanks to the support of our members, media in the public interest is free for all to access in Bristol.

Beyond just publishing, the Cable delivers free media training through its Media Lab course with award-winning journalists, and year-round member events. In doing so, Bristolians are equipped with the skills to report on important issues to them and have a platform to publish on.

The Future Is Beautiful

The Future is Beautiful is a weekly podcast goes where other forms of media do not. Amisha Ghadiali interviews people whose work and lives are challenging the dominant story. The conversations are long, authentic and unedited. They explore the weave between politics, spirituality, sustainability and creativity – so we can come out of our silos – and bring more of who we are to our lives. These inspiring conversations also look into the darkness and difficulties of life and challenging the status quo, providing comfort and a grounded optimism.

It can feel like with all the challenges we face such as climate change and poverty, that the future is f***ed. And yet despite that, there are so many incredible people who are working on solutions in different ways that really could lead us to a beautiful future. The Future is Beautiful is about introducing us to these people. Amisha will be searching out more of these people at KIN.

The Finance Innovation Lab

The Finance Innovation Lab works for a financial system that serves people and planet – incubating the ideas and people with the potential to transform the system for good.

Our work is rooted in an understanding of finance as a complex human system – one that belongs to us all. In the face of huge imbalances of information and power, it can seem impossible to change finance, but our work is informed by a radical hope: because humans created the system, humans can change it.

Co-founded during the financial crisis by WWF-UK and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Lab is now an independent charity working with innovators building new ways to do finance, campaigners and policymakers shaping the rules of the game, and professionals seeking to change finance from the inside out. We’re best known for our Fellowship incubation programme, which in 2018-19 focuses on the role of data in building a more democratic, responsible and fair financial system.

The Lab is co-curating KIN’s Money Hack series, which reimagines the future of finance with kindness at its core. The series includes Paul Mason, John Kay, Money Rehab, Money Hack, Crash Course in Economics, KIN’s subversive business incubator, Culture Hack Live and much more.

Bristol Pound

The Bristol Pound (£B), the UK’s largest local currency, is the official currency of KIN.*

Launched in 2012, it creates a more resilient and sustainable independent business sector in Bristol, and in turn, a fairer and more inclusive local economy. It does this by keeping the money spent in Bristol Pounds in Bristol, adding to a local circular economy, instead of leaking away to distant head offices, supply chains and shareholders. The £B comes in both paper and electronic versions, and offers a phone app with a map to help people discover and support Bristol’s independent businesses.

(*British pound sterling also accepted)

The Bureau Local

The Bureau Local is a collaborative, investigative network revealing stories that matter to communities across the UK. Launched in March 2017 by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, they have built a network across the UK whose members include regional and national news outlets, local reporters, hyperlocal bloggers, technologists, community-minded citizens and specialist contributors.
With each investigation, they make relevant information accessible to everyone in the network and help members find out how the issue plays out in their area. As reporting takes place across the country, they then connect the dots to create a national picture.
They do this work because they believe that holding power to account, both locally and nationally, is crucial for a just and equitable society, and local journalism is integral to this accountability. The Bureau Local has been called “one of the most positive and effective interventions in local journalism in the UK for some time” and has won multiple awards. In September 2018, Nesta and The Observer named the Bureau Local as one of 50 “New Radicals” making a difference to lives in the UK.

The Nzinga Effect

The Nzinga Effect is a media project focusing on the stories of African women and women of African descent. The stories we are constantly exposed to shape our view of the world and our place in it. The Nzinga Effect believe that African women changing their communities and the world are often scrubbed out of history, their contributions diminished and forgotten. Their aim is to rewrite the narrative; to carve out a space for African women’s voices and experiences through multimedia content and live events, both for African and international audiences. Through the Nzinga StoryLab, they work with other organisations who want to tell better stories about Africa and African people. New stories shape new possibilities. This is the Nzinga Effect.

Transition Bristol

Transition Bristol is a volunteer-led initiative that has been active in the city since 2007 and part of the worldwide Transition Movement. It acts in support of city-level resilience projects in Bristol to reimagine and rebuild our world working towards a healthier, happier, socially just, future within planetary bounds. The movement is emerging across the city in many ways. The Transition process is constantly evolving, as more of us take up the challenge and run with it, flexibly adapting to the situations around us. The work of “unleashing the collective genius” of the city will always be ‘work in progress’.

Founder of the Transition Network, Rob Hopkins, will be at KIN hosting a participatory talk “Make Britain Imaginative Again.” 

Bristol24/7

Bristol24/7 provide high-quality, independent news and features from their team of experienced and talented journalists and bloggers. Their ethos is to be independent, honest and transparent, and uphold the highest editorial values.

Bristol24/7 is a Community Interest Company, which means the title is a protected asset, owned by a wide spread of shareholders from across the city. The lion’s share of any future profits will be reinvested back into the company and ongoing projects in the community of Bristol.

Happy City

Happy City works to change the compass from consumption and growth toward wellbeing for people, place and planet. They bring this vision to life through extensively researched and evidence-based strategic direction, measurement tools and training.  

Happy City works with local authorities, businesses, communities and individuals to provide practical pathways to measure, understand and improve wellbeing.

Their headline Thriving Places Index measures how well we’re doing at growing the conditions for people to thrive and is a world-leading place based new economy tool. The Index is published annually for all local authorities across England and Wales. 

Alongside this the Happiness Pulse tool creates a detailed picture of how people feel and function in their lives, work and communities. It can be used at any scale from individual citizens, through teams, organisations or whole regions – to map wellbeing strengths and needs, or evaluate deeper social impact.

Protestival

Protestival offers an alternative way to be an activist. It was born out of feeling disempowered by activism that gave power to others, and that didn’t feel inspiring. It was also a response to activism that was polarizing and ‘other’-ing, that poses activists and ‘others’ on opposing sides.

Through Protestival, we create a community of people who had a vision for the future, and who wanted to work together to find ways to reach it. We provide space for people to explore different kinds of activism, and find what works for them. We do this through events of three types: day festivals, evening sessions, and workshops.

Through building and strengthening this network of engaged people, we build confidence, community, and our ability to communicate effectively. Protestival has some emergent properties: often what comes out of these events is bigger than the sum of its parts. We connect people, and what they do together is beyond the boundaries of Protestival.