Our Team

Toogs Team

Daniel Clark

  • Daniel is an artist whose personal practice navigates his experience of neurodivergency through print, sound, and moving image. He is a graduate and former Technician of the Royal College of Art. His work is part of major UK art collections such as the V&A Word and Image Collection, and the British Library Sound & Moving Image Archive.

    Daniel co-founded Gaada out a shared passion for creativity, collaboration, and inclusivity, and builds upon his two decades of experience in DIY artist publishing. His role supports all aspects of the organisations day-to-day running, with a focus on curation and the development of Toogs Artist Workshop.

  • Amy is an artist and writer. She has an MA from the Royal College of Art (2015) and a BA from Gray’s School of Art (2012). Amy has exhibited internationally and worked as a lecturer and print technician in art schools across Scotland. Amy is a Trustee of the Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN).

    Amy co-founded Gaada in 2018 and applies her creativity and imagination to all aspects of the organisation, with a focus on strategy and advocacy.

Amy Gear

Jono Sandilands

  • Jono is an artist and self-described graphic adventurer making work at the intersection of printmaking, digital technologies, design, interaction, and play. He has an MA in Printmaking from UWE in Bristol.

    Jono’s role focuses on supporting all aspects of the growing Toogs Artist Workshop and Gaada’s artist publishing activities.

Issey Medd

  • Issey is an illustrator, speedy sketcher and printmaker.

    Issey creates comics, zines and workshops alongside live portraits events and playful narrative illustrations for brands, magazines and children’s media.

    Their role at Gaada focuses on supporting all aspects of the growing Toogs Artist Workshop with a focus on organisation of our artist-led activities.

  • Tristan is an artist interested in story-telling, drawing, and the implications of AI on the human race.

    Tristan’s flexible working role focuses on supporting the digital cataloguing and database management of Gaada’s Zine Library and wider Collections.

    Tristan has attended Weekly 121 Workshops at Gaada since 2021, and is currently an undergraduate student studying Cyber Security through The Open University.

Tristan Rafferty

Lenny

  • Lenny is the workshop dug and Gaada's pawt-time wellbeing coordinator. He reminds the team to take regular breaks from work to go outside, get fresh air, and of course, rub his belly.

    Lenny likes to greet visitors enthusiastically and may bark. If you would prefer he is not here during your visit, please let us know and Lenny can be stowed in his office at the rear of the building.

Gaada Governance

Helen Nisbet

  • Helen is a curator and writer from Shetland who lives and works in London. She is the CEO & Artistic Director of Cromwell Place, She has an extensive CV, including: former Director of Art Night, Turner Prize Jury 2023, numerous international curatorial positions; visiting lecturer for Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths, and Slade. Helen is part of advisory boards for a-n and Art Quest. Her writing regularly features contemporary use of Shetland Dialect and has been widely published.

    In her role at Gaada, Helen provides wide ranging organisational guidance and uses her place-specific understanding of Shetland to support the organisation in planning for the future.

  • Alexia is Director of Cove Park, an international residency for local, national and international artists based in rural Argyll on Scotland's west coast. Prior to Cove Park, she was Curator at Tramway, Glasgow, where she commissioned major solo exhibitions by artists such as Martin Boyce, Pipilotti Rist, Stephen Sutcliffe, Salla Tykkä and Tatham & O'Sullivan. A graduate of Glasgow University's History of Art department, she also worked at Glasgow School of Art and the CCA whilst completing a Ph.D. on early twentieth century fashion design. As Curator for the Scottish Print Network, between 2012 and 2016, she developed 'Below another sky', an international programme of residencies, exhibitions and events for Scotland's five print studios. In addition, during 2016 and 2017, she was Project Coordinator for Little Sparta, the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, and its Sharing Little Sparta programme.

Alexia Holt

  • Daniel is an artist whose personal practice navigates his experience of neurodivergency through print, sound, and moving image. He is a graduate and former Technician of the Royal College of Art. His work is part of major UK art collections such as the V&A Word and Image Collection, and the British Library Sound & Moving Image Archive.

    Daniel co-founded Gaada out a shared passion for creativity, collaboration, and inclusivity, and builds upon his two decades of experience in DIY artist publishing. His role supports all aspects of the organisations day-to-day running, with a focus on curation and the development of Toogs Artist Workshop.

Daniel Clark

  • Amy is an artist and writer. She has an MA from the Royal College of Art (2015) and a BA from Gray’s School of Art (2012). Amy has exhibited internationally and worked as a lecturer and print technician in art schools across Scotland. Amy is a Trustee of the Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN).

    Amy co-founded Gaada in 2018 and applies her creativity and imagination to all aspects of the organisation, with a focus on strategy and advocacy.

Amy Gear

Jane Haswell

  • “We are all citizens first and foremost. For many people there are barriers to expressing and developing their artistic expression, Gaada is at the forefront of changing this”

    Jane is a founding trustee of Shetland Community Connections, a Lecturer, a Board member of both Shetland Health Board and Shetland Health and Care Partnership. Jane has national and local experience in shaping Health & Social Care policies and reviews and has a particular interest in the independent living movement and Partners in Policy Making. Jane believes every citizen has the right to access resources that contribute to their individual development and well-being, thereby increasing the diverse richness of the creative landscape of Shetland and beyond.

    Jane has been a vital source of guidance since Gaada began, and continues to play a key role in supporting the organisation’s development.

Belladonna Paloma

  • Belladonna Paloma is an artist & witch living in Shetland, UK. She paints, tattoos, makes games and writes poetry. Her work is inhabited by toilet gods, crossroads, boglands, grief rituals and necromancers all in devotion to the beings we mistakenly name ‘waste’.

    Her work has been exhibited by: IMT Gallery, London (2023); The Overkill Festival, Netherlands, in collaboration with Uma Breakdown (2023); Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, in collaboration with Rabindranath Bhose and Oren Shoesmith (2023); and Gropius Bau, Berlin, in collaboration with Daniella Valz Gen (2023).

    She is deeply invested in DIY artist-led culture, running The Viriconium Palace (with Lucie Akerman) from 2016 - 2019, a project-space and experimental design-studio; and from 2014 - 2019 she was the co-director (with Tom Prater) of Doggerland, a publication and research project around artist-led culture in the UK.

    Website / Computer Games

Karl Johnson

  • Karl is a sociology lecturer and writer from Shetland, now living and working in Edinburgh.

    To date, his work has centred around widening access to higher education, comic books and their fandom, imposter syndrome, sociological fiction, and activism against the gender inequality of the Lerwick Up Helly Aa fire festival – including participating in Gaada’s Weemin’s Wark project.

    Elsewhere, Karl has acted as a social affairs consultant on two editions of the Collins English Dictionary.

Jennifer Mcleaskintosh

  • I am a neuroqueer artist whose work is interdisciplinary. My passions are activist art, creativity, music, human connection, comedy, witchcraft, social justice, gaming, food & drink. I am lucky to have an Honours degree in Contemporary Textiles & a Postgraduate diploma in Art & Social Practice. As a disabled person I use my creativity and artistic mindset to weave art into my daily life; it helps me find equilibrium & reminds me that art is so much more than something to be bought or sold.