.jpg)
flematu sessay (b.1987, she/her) is a British-Sierra Leonean artist and cultural producer based in Manchester, UK.
After a long tenure working in the architecture and design industry, both in the UK and abroad, she established the creative studio public tactics. with an ambition to work with other artists, designers, scholars and communities on projects that amplify creativity occurring at the intersections of race, gender and identity.
Her praxis is research-driven and rooted in collaborating to explore the spaces and places we occupy, and celebrate the everyday routines and rituals performed within them. Through her collaborations, flematu attempts to address the persistent exclusion, misrepresentation and harm of marginalised groups. She hopes to empower others to infuse their personal narratives into the often-overlooked moments of the everyday.
A growing and central element of her practice is people-powered archiving and memory making. Increasingly working with oral histories, lived experiences and vernacular knowledge, she is shaping an archival practice that can be a critical form of resistance and record. She works with communities to reclaim agency over their stories and to correct the systemic and historic erasure of their cultures by honouring memory and preservation as a communal, lived and evolving process.
flematu believes in the importance of supporting her communities and developing meaningful connections to provide collective support. Whether teaming up with artists, engaging with audiences, or contributing to cultural initiatives, she prioritises collaboration and shared purpose.
She aspires to work with community and for community, producing a reflection of our collectives and working towards our liberation through reparative representation.