Ayanna Adannay Blair-Ford

Ayanna is a budding architect and production designer, with a passion for narrative-led design. Ayanna received her BA (Hons) in Architecture from Oxford Brookes University in 2017, where she is now an Associate Lecturer. Upon graduation, Ayanna worked at HawkinsBrown Architects as an Architectural Assistant and then went on to work at 59 Productions as an Architectural Assistant and Junior spatial designer. Her experiences as 59 Productions reinforced her interest in narrative-led design, performance, and experiential design and led her to study at the RCA. Displaying an innovative and forward-thinking approach to the role of the architect, Ayanna was awarded the RIBA Wren Insurance Association Scholarship this academic year. 

At the RCA Ayanna's research stems from an interest in identity, perception, and spatiality. Last year, Ayanna's project explored cultural erasure and digital colonialism, in a speculative future of Jamaica. This year, the themes of identity and space persist as Ayanna researches the possibilities of theatre and performance when considering the narrative of African and Caribbean diasporas.

In 2019 Ayanna was part of the winning design team for the ‘Mile18 Marker’ competition for the London Marathon, in association with the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust and Virgin Money. Over the last year, Ayanna has also been working as an Assistant Art Director in Film, TV and music videos, assisting production designer Chris Melgram.

Blackness is staged. In life. In stories. On stage. Representing an idea of blackness, not always created by the subject, but imposed upon them. In the UK there has been a significant rise of ‘Black British plays’ exploring ideas of diaspora, colonialism, identity, and blackness. However, it can be argued that the way in which we create, develop, and consume performance in the UK is inherently Eurocentric. What if these stories were told and performed in ways that resonated more closely with African and Caribbean culture?

Black On Stage is the development of a new performance method, cartographic of the Caribbean diaspora. It aims firstly to un-condition, then to re-condition, the viewer and their consumption of Black narratives. Black on Stage defines a blueprint for staging a world with Black voices and identities at its forefront. This performance method constructs a new scaffold - built not on the stereotypes born of slavery but the resistance of the people, the things that survived. The final output of this project is a short film of the same title, putting into action this new performance method.