Ushiku Crisafulli is a chef, published writer, multi-disciplinary artist and founder of the OpenMind
Collective which curate community focused cross-genre creative collaborations through live events.
Ushiku’s creative practice involves comedy, hip hop, musicianship, filmmaking, theatre making,
acting, directing, facilitating, project management, and consultancy.
He’s a proud ambassador of Disabled Artists Networking Community and is an advocate for greater
inclusion in the arts for underserved sections of society having benefitted from a creative outlet whilst
homeless in 2007 with the play ‘A Last Cry’ co-written alongside Manchester Playwrights Forum in
Autumn/Winter prior to being performed on 8th January 2008. This began his relationship with Contact.
The experience of homelessness was also the basis for the installation created alongside David Hoyle
as part of his Artist in Residency at Contact in March 2008.
This socially conscious strand of his work has been seen most recently in his inclusion in the Unseen
Voices exhibition in July 2023 in partnership with GMCA at HOME which documented people with
lived experience of multiple disadvantages through film, live performance, and panel discussions.