About The Oracle

Creative agency

We work with artists, musicians, producers, filmmakers, designers, institutions, venues, brands and communities to create live programmes, cultural events, commissions, education, media, creative direction and consultancy.

Collective

As a collective of artists, producers, musicians, educators, academics, creatives and cultural operators, we operate across curation, production, cultural systems and consultation. Our network spans visual artists, technicians and fabricators working across live, studio and built environments.

Cultural ecosystem

A traditional agency might simply provide a service to a client. A collective might mainly exist to support its own members. A promoter might put on events. A consultancy might advise organisations. The Oracle does elements of all of these, but connects them through one ecosystem.

Developing cultural institution

The long-term aim is closer to a cultural institution built from the grassroots upward.

Culture needs infrastructure

A large amount of cultural value comes from grassroots scenes, independent artists, young creatives and communities. But those people often operate without the infrastructure that larger organisations have. A large institution may have finance teams, project managers, archives, legal support, communications departments and established funding structures. An independent musician may have a WhatsApp thread, an invoice and a hard drive. That imbalance matters.

Ethical creativity

The process matters as much as the final product. Who was paid? Who was credited? Who benefited? Who retained ownership? Who was allowed into the room?

Fair artist remuneration

Artists and musicians should be paid fairly. It is a question we ask of every project: how do we pay musicians properly?

Community and resource-sharing

We create environments where resources, knowledge and opportunity are shared across a community. Not just participating in culture, but shaping how it exists.

Cultural ownership

Artists and cultural communities should not have to become corporate in order to become organised. They should be able to build infrastructure that protects the culture rather than flattening it, and create work without losing ownership of the culture around them.

Youth development

Youth is our driving force. Youth and emerging artists matter because culture needs continuity.

Long-term sustainability

If a cultural organisation constantly destroys itself financially in order to produce good work, the model is not actually ethical.

Grassroots beginnings

The Oracle has developed organically from people making music, performing, teaching, producing and building community. It was not invented as an agency first and then sent looking for a culture to represent. The culture came first. The infrastructure is being built around it.

The name is on the posters from 2018: Anjelo Disons + The Oracle at Endz Jazz / Soul South, Upstairs at the Ritzy in Brixton, in August 2018, then Anjelo Disons and The Oracle at One FRSH Friday, The Curtain, in February 2019. The record, year by year

Live culture

Our history includes event residencies at Locke Hotel, BOXPARK and The Piano Bar Soho, and live work across The Jazz Café, Southbank Centre, XOYO, Boomtown, WOMAD, Cross The Tracks and Brick Lane Jazz Festival. Endz Jazz Soul, our live music platform, has existed across different venues and forms.

Education

There is also an educational history involving organisations such as UCL, Goldsmiths, RCA and LCC, alongside mentoring and youth-development work.

Institutional development

We have worked across grassroots culture and major institutions: creating Disrupting the Legacy with UCL, co-producing and curating Panafrica in Rhythm at the Barbican, performing at V&A East’s Music is Black Festival and bringing Endz Jazz Soul to COLORS Tones of London. We do not believe a project is culturally meaningful simply because a prestigious institution is attached to it. A community jam and a Barbican commission can serve the same philosophy.

Where The Oracle is going

The ambition is an institution with the cultural intimacy of a grassroots collective and the organisational capacity of a much larger one: Oracle-owned programmes growing into recognised institutions in their own right, a searchable archive of performances, conversations, credits and cultural history, and education and mentoring that create pathways for younger creatives.