‘A Working Artist Archive’; It Takes A Village with Cleo Reed…

The next edition of We Out Here Festival: It Takes A Village weekly radio series is here. A show paving the road to the festival, featuring artists from across the line up.

For this episode, Cleo Reed steps onto the airwaves ahead, responding to the theme ‘It Takes A Village’. They present ‘The Reeding Room: A Working Artist Archive’ - an evolving audiovisual programme exploring the realities, resilience, and shared experiences of working artists.

A student of Black underground sound and intention, Cleo Reed is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work spans composition, instrument making, installation, and fabric arts. From early classical training in Harlem to shaping a distinct voice across scenes in NYC and beyond, their practice honours lineage while pushing form forward.

Through conversations with peers and collaborators across generations, Reed traces the lives of artists balancing creative practice with labour across fields such as education, childcare, and trades. Moving between personal stories and the music that soundtracks them, the show reflects on survival, purpose, and the blurred lines between work and art.

Where voices connect and communities grow, culture is almost always built together...