Image Credit: Bea Taylor Searle, co-founder of Peckham Digital. Photographed by Mati Granica.

Bea Taylor Searle didn’t set out to build one of London’s most exciting creative technology communities. Her journey began with a curiosity about art, before discovering the creative potential of code while studying Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and later the Creative Computing Institute. Along the way, she realised her greatest talent wasn’t making artworks herself – it was creating the conditions for other artists to flourish. That philosophy has shaped everything she’s built since, from transforming a garage in Bethnal Green into an artist-led gallery to co-founding Peckham Digital, a community interest company dedicated to opening up the world of creative computing to everyone.

Today, Peckham Digital has become one of London’s most vital grassroots festivals, bringing together artists, coders, designers, makers and curious newcomers to explore technology through collaboration, creativity and open-source thinking. At a time when conversations around AI are increasingly dominated by Big Tech, Bea offers a refreshing alternative: technology as a tool for learning, making and building communities – not simply consuming products. It’s a vision now gaining national recognition through her work with the SORI Collective and Creative Intelligence at the Southbank Centre, where Peckham Digital is inviting visitors to get their hands dirty and imagine a more creative, democratic digital future.

We’re speaking to Bea as Peckham Digital launches a £30,000 Crowdfunder to make its fifth Festival of Creative Computing possible. The campaign isn’t simply about funding an event – it’s about investing in emerging artists, accessible workshops, paid opportunities and a growing creative ecosystem that believes technology should belong to everyone. If that sounds like a future worth building, why not be part of it? Chip in to the Crowdfunder if you can, sign up to the Peckham Digital mailing list, and discover a community proving that the most exciting ideas often begin when people gather, experiment and learn together.

You grew up in Rome before building your career in London, and you’ve spoken about seeing Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue at the Venice Biennale as a turning point. Looking back, what first sparked your curiosity about art and technology – and when did you realise your calling wasn’t necessarily to make the work yourself, but to create opportunities for other artists to thrive?

I can’t say I had a lightning moment where I realised that art and technology was my calling; it felt more like building a puzzle whilst wearing a blindfold. Back at school, I was first introduced to coding in a Physics lesson where my teacher showed us Python on Codeacademy.com. I remember that lesson clearly, but at the time it reinforced a bias in me that code was for science and engineering rather than for creative use.

This bias started to loosen during my BA in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins when I attended a workshop by the Fine Arts Maths Centre, run by Andrew McGettigan and Rich Cochrane, where I learned the basics of Processing. Following that, I took other electives including Raspberry Pi and HTML. These were all skills I was learning but never contextualised with the history of artists using these tools. I was acquiring techniques without understanding their lineage (hence the blindfold).

In 2019, I joined the Creative Computing Institute’s first Diploma in Creative Computing, an incredible course that brought together creative students from across UAL colleges to work with code creatively. I owe a lot to two people in my educational journey who opened my eyes to this world and provided the ethics and morals I follow: Joel Gethin Lewis and Lex Fefegha. Without them pointing the way, I might have stayed blindfolded much longer, and Peckham Digital might not have happened.

Prior to Peckham Digital, I co-ran an artist-led space called LUVA (Lock Up Visual Arts) from 2018 to 2022. Once a month, we transformed a garage on the Thomas Hollywood estate in Bethnal Green into a gallery. There, I produced shows for artists such as Paige Perkins and Jordan McKenzie. That experience confirmed that my skills were better placed in curating and producing than in creating artworks myself.

Peckham Digital has been the space where I have learnt the most about the history of artists working with computers, far more than my undergraduate degree taught me. The more I run it, the more I believe that you don’t need a degree in computational arts to become a computational artist. It may be a controversial view, but I strongly believe you learn more in community. It continues to be my place of learning: where, perhaps selfishly, I learn from the artists I work with, which is then passed on to visitors, becoming a vivid ecosystem that provides an alternative to institutionalisation.

Image Credit: Peckham Digital, photographed by Mati Granica.

You co-founded Peckham Digital at a time when conversations around technology often felt dominated by big platforms, venture capital and Silicon Valley thinking. What did you feel was missing from London’s creative landscape – and was Peckham Digital, in some ways, your way of protesting against the idea that technology should only belong to specialists and big corporations?

Honestly, I think I was more outraged that I hadn’t found out about this creative practice earlier in my studies. The reason I was drawn to the Diploma in Creative Computing was because I felt it was essential for me to understand this practice especially in a world that is being dominated by ubiquitous software. I was 24 when Peckham Digital was officially registered as a Community Interest Company, and we set it up with the main aim of expanding access to creative computing. At the end of each festival, we ask attendees if they were introduced to a new area of creative computing; to date, 87% have said yes. To me, that is a huge achievement and demonstrates the clear need for what we do.

At the beginning, it was less a form of protest against Silicon Valley and more an urgent need to fill a gap I knew existed – to provide an in-person space for online communities, as well as a welcoming entry point for newcomers. Today, however, Peckham Digital plays a crucial role in providing education on open-source technologies, which in many ways is a form of protest towards Big Tech and subscriber-based platforms

Image Credit: Peckham Digital, photographed by Mati Granica.

Peckham Digital has become one of London’s most exciting grassroots festivals for creative computing, yet like so many independent cultural organisations, its future depends on community support. As you launch your Crowdfunder to raise £30,000 for the 2026 festival, what will those contributions make possible – and why is now such an important moment for people to get behind this work?

Peckham Digital doesn’t exist in a silo; it follows a lineage of very exciting organisations that sat at the intersection of art and technology but unfortunately no longer exist, such as Backspace or node.London. This fragility is something I have become increasingly aware of, given the difficulties of accessing traditional funding, which is precisely why we are crowdfunding now.

The funds will allow us to exhibit 10 artists, (for seven of them, this will be their first paid exhibition), alongside 10 workshops, 8 talks, 6 performances, screenings, and meetups. This year we are planning to have a dedicate space for video game artworks, which is often an overlooked form. All the programme, except for the workshops, is provided free to the community, and we take great pride in paying all creatives a fee informed by Artist Union England guidelines. This format lowers barriers to entry and creates a wonderfully diverse programme, something audience members have consistently commented on positively. The number of events is still subject to change depending on how well the crowdfunding campaign goes, in this moment I am confident the talks and workshops will be going ahead.

We’ve seen emerging artists we’ve platformed go on to secure opportunities at places like FACT Liverpool, and facilitators taking on roles as educators in universities. One of my favourite moments was discovering that a workshop attendee had developed the skills they learnt at Peckham Digital so thoroughly that they went on to run their own workshops in their hometown. That ripple effect is what we’re fighting to sustain.

Film credit: Peckham Digital 2026 Crowdfunding film. Peckham Digital is raising £30,000 for it’s 5th Festival of Creative Computing. Find out more at crowdfunder.co.uk

This year feels like a significant milestone. As part of SORI Collective, you’re curating Get Your Hands Dirty with Creative Tech within the Southbank Centre’s new Creative Intelligence festival, bringing Peckham Digital into one of the UK’s most respected cultural institutions. What excites you most about introducing your community to this bigger stage – and what do you hope visitors will discover when they step into your programme?

As I mentioned, London has a rich history of creative computing communities, though it’s often overlooked. I am incredibly excited for this recognition to happen as it validates decades of grassroots effort. More importantly, this is what our community brings to the Southbank Centre: a hands-dirty, accessible approach to tech that prioritises human connection over corporate polish. For this first iteration, Peckham Digital is bringing London’s most engaged creative computing communities, each grounded in Do‑It‑With‑Others values. During this festival, visitors will be invited to think about what happens to their data once they pass away, learn about our relationship with energy when using our technological devices and how that is connected to the earth’s resources, play with cyberdecks and imagine a world where tech serves them rather than consumes them. Essentially, I hope visitors discover that creative technology isn’t just about sleek gadgets or AI hype, but about tangible experimentation, collaboration, and the messy, beautiful process of making things and learning together.

Image Credit: Peckham Digital, photographed by Mati Granica.

Artificial intelligence dominates so many conversations about creativity, often swinging between utopian promises and dystopian fears. As someone working directly with artists experimenting with new technologies, where do you think the conversation is too simplistic – and what more hopeful or nuanced stories should we be telling instead?

Many conversations surrounding AI are too binary: we swing wildly between worship and fear without examining the middle ground. This is why the conversations remain too simplistic. As it stands, AI has arrived and is here to stay, but we don’t have to accept it for what it is now. We need to talk about agency, ethics, and how these tools reshape labour and authorship. Groups like Future Inventions and Identity2.0 are doing really important work around how we should be talking and working with these technologies. Future Inventions have provided workshops around small AI, making it more accessible and unique to users who rightfully don’t trust Big Tech companies. They push beyond the headlines to explore how artists can harness these tools critically, rather than just passively consuming them. That nuance is what’s missing from mainstream discourse.

Image Credit: Peckham Digital, photographed by Mati Granica.

One of the most striking things about Peckham Digital is that it feels less like a festival and more like a growing community. What have you learned about bringing artists, coders, designers and curious newcomers into the same room – and what gives you confidence that London’s creative technology scene is becoming more collaborative rather than more competitive?

Year on year, we receive feedback from multiple stakeholders about the success of our community-building efforts. Peckham Digital has become a convening space for creative computing communities and a growing piece of London’s digital arts infrastructure. Bringing diverse groups into the same room dissolves hierarchies: coders meet artists, designers meet engineers. Everyone realises that we are all figuring things out as we go.

There’s a vibrant network here. Phreaking Collective, for example, embodies this spirit of open sharing of work-in-progress; AlgoRhythms events follow a “bad code only” mantra; and the London Pattern Club offers new entry points to coding through tactility. Seeing younger generations mentor older ones, and vice versa, gives me confidence. The hunger for collaboration outweighs the desire for competition. People are tired of silos; they want to touch, break, and rebuild things together, and Peckham Digital acts as a catalyst in this ecosystem.

Image Credit: Peckham Digital, photographed by Mati Granica.

You’re constantly discovering artists who are pushing the boundaries of creative computing in unexpected ways. Whose work has genuinely surprised or inspired you recently – and are there any emerging voices or ideas that you’re particularly excited for audiences to encounter at Peckham Digital Festival 2026?

An artist who is continuously surprising (positively) and inspiring me is Ahnjili Zhuparris. I met her back in 2023 at the IMPAKT festival in Utrecht, where she was exhibiting with the collective VOICES an artwork that invited visitors to share a secret whilst cloning their voice; in return, audience members heard the secrets of previous attendees but spoken in their own cloned voices. More recently, she has made a documentary around deepfakes. This year, Ahnjili will be returning to Peckham Digital with Fashion Police Drones, a satirical but eerie performance where visitors will be followed by drones. Expect to be judged!

Run Riot always asks our guests to share a few cultural recommendations. If you were introducing someone to the London that inspires you, which three galleries, venues, creative spaces or neighbourhoods would you send them to – and what makes each one so special through your eyes?

Permacomputing Club is a weekly meetup where you can “share your skills, explore regenerative and low tech computing, and practice hands-on maintenance and repair”. I am a big fan of Permacomputing as it brings permaculture practices within computing as a ways to provide solutions to Big Tech problems.

London Community Laptop Orchestra is a space for everyone who is interested in making sound with their laptops. They practice guerilla performances in various London institutions and actively break down the stereotype that sound art spaces are exclusionary.

London Pattern Club brings together coding, knitting and weaving practices to explore algorithmic art. They provide workshops and for the month of August are running a summer school which I would highly recommend attending.

Find Bea at bats1996.github.io and @bats1996

Stay tuned for Peckham Digital Festival 2026 by joining their mailing list via peckhamdigital.org and follow them @peckhamdigital

Help the Crowdfund (ends soon!) → crowdfunder.co.uk

Peckham Digital present
AlgoFund
Vespers Club
Peckham, SE15 4BQ
Thu 27 Aug 2026, 18:00-01:00

Info & Tickets → tickettailor.com