Christmas art market and inspiring creative talks: get tickets for the last Nicer Tuesdays of 2023!

They say Christmas is all about giving, so we’re going to give you not three but four amazing talks at our final event of 2023! After such a whirlwind year of Nicer Tuesdays events we thought we’d wrap it up with a bumper event featuring some of our favourite creatives working today. At the event we’ll also have the return of our art market. So if you’re someone who likes to get their Christmas shopping in early and loves nothing more than an independent hand-crafted gift, this is the place for you.

Taking to the stage we’ll have Angela Kirkwood, an illustrator and animator whose retro cartoon-inspired work never fails to amuse and spark joy; The Digital Fairy, a creative agency working at the helm of contemporary culture; and Tami Aftab, a photographer who will be walking us through the heartwarming photobook-meets-cookbook she made with her father, titled The Rice is on the Hob. Finally, for our last Q&A slot of the year we’ll have bi-scriptual design specialist and founder of Right to Left studio Samar Maakaroun, the latest to receive one of Pentagram’s coveted partner positions.

The event will take place on 5 December with doors opening at 6pm. As this is an 18+ event, please bring ID with you to the venue. If you are in need of disability access, please make yourself known to a member of the EartH team on the evening or email hello@nicertuesdays.com so we can arrange assistance. Carry on reading to find out more about our incredible line-up of speakers.

In the design industry, being a Pentagram partner is a serious sign of your abilities, and no one seems more deserving than the recently appointed Samar Maakaroun. The founder of the London-based studio Right to Left – a name that plays on the way Arabic script is read – Samar specialises in multicultural and multilingual design. In a recent interview, Samar outlined the design problems her studio aims to find solutions for. “If you have so many designers in the city that speak so many different languages, why not set up brands that exist like this from the outset?” At Nicer Tuesdays, Samar will be sitting down with editor-in-chief Matt Alagiah to discuss her career so far, her Pentagram appointment and how the industry can be more linguistically inclusive.

On the surface, The Digital Fairy is a strategic and creative partner that works on campaigns and with brands like D&AD, Peachy Den and Adidas, but they’re also so much more. Bringing together a hybrid group of creatives, they spearhead work that’s “braver”, “more inclusive” and aims to do more to represent the often vilified Gen Z. Working seamlessly across IRL and digital mediums, they’re a creative organisation that has their finger on the pulse, something their popular Instagram and TikTok accounts prove. Here, their team can be found digging into a plethora of cultural phenomena, like “glam capitalism”, the “eyeshadow apocalypse” and the “great goofy renaissance”, breaking down how such niche trends have emerged in our vast digital landscape.

If you’re ever in need of a big serotonin hit, we highly recommend taking a trip through Angela Kirkwood’s Instagram page. An illustrator and animator who in recent years has become loved for her loveable characters, bold colours and wacky storylines, her work is a remedy for melancholy. But it hasn’t always been so smooth sailing. After starting her career in graphic design, she soon became bogged down by the industry, and ended up quitting her job in the midst of a Zoom call. Luckily, it paid off and her illustrative talent has also won her a fair few clients, including the likes of Lazy Oaf, for which she created a whole clothing line, and Selfridges, which saw her work take over its flagship London store.

Food and family are two entities that come hand in hand, something proven by Tami and Tony Aftab’s photobook-meets-cookbook The Rice is on the Hob. Inspired by a shared love of food – specifically the Pakistani food of Tony’s childhood – the book sees the pair travel to Lahore to capture the people, places and dishes that Tony grew up with. The book also grapples with Tony’s short-term memory loss, a condition that was caused by an accident in surgery nearly 30 years ago. A project that’s warm, tender and full of flavour, at Nicer Tuesdays Tami will be explaining just how she and her father brought the book together.