About us · Founded 2023 · Newham
With people.
Through our eye.
Cameye Arts is a not-for-profit digital arts studio. We make work consciously, for people, planet and an urgent world, and we’re built on one belief: the best work comes from deep listening and a clear artistic eye.
Mozambique
came first.
Years of filming with women, artists, healers and fisherwomen, far from any institution, taught us what conscious storytelling really means.
Listen before speaking. Watch before filming. Earn trust before asking anything.
East London came later. Those lessons came with us.
We’re the not-for-profit sister of Cameye Studios, the arts film company Ana founded in 2005. Same eye, different purpose: Cameye Studios makes films for cultural organisations, and Cameye Arts makes artist-led work with communities, for public benefit.
Before
Mozambique
Self-initiated ethnographic film shapes everything we do.
2023
The CIC is born
Cameye Arts founded as a Community Interest Company in Newham.
2024
The pilot
Five elders, four activist groups and a queer walking tour of Stratford.
2025
We go bigger
Footprints of Love launches with National Lottery Heritage Fund support.
Next
CLIMACTION
Our climate art movement. Pilot complete, and now growing step by step, starting locally.
How we work
Our practice
Collaboration, with a clear eye.
Communities inspire our work, take part in it and often perform in it. The artistic vision is ours, shaped by anthropology, filmmaking and two decades of looking closely.
Why digital
We use technology to listen better.
Stories travel, and stories last. So we work in film, 360 video, live-streaming and living online archives. Never to talk over people.
How a project grows
Good work can’t be rushed. Every project moves through four stages, at its own pace.
01
Listen
We gather before we decide. Conversations, places, memories. No deadline yet.
02
Explore
We try things and follow hunches. Some ideas only make sense once they’re on screen.
03
Shape
We craft the edit slowly, until it feels true to the people in it.
04
Let go
We release it into the world and let it find its people.
Our values
Serious work, made joyfully. That isn’t a contradiction. It’s the whole point.
01
Conscious practice
It starts in stillness. We follow what feels true, even before we can explain it, and always ask whose story this really is.
02
Radical togetherness
We work closely with communities. Built on trust, not extraction.
03
Art that acts
Climate, belonging, memory, justice. Beauty opens the door. Then the work has to do something.
04
Lead with love
Warmth, play and absolute conviction in everything we make.
An evolving
organism.
Filmmakers, anthropologists, artists and activists. A small core, a wide circle.
Founder · Director · she/they
Ana de Matos
Queer filmmaker and visual anthropologist with Portuguese roots. By the age of 12, she had lived on four continents. For two decades she has filmed UK arts and culture, from major national institutions to grassroots communities and independent artists. She directs, produces, shoots and edits, bringing an anthropologist’s curiosity to every project. Daily meditation shapes how she works: she starts in stillness and lets the work take shape. Off camera, she cycles everywhere in London and has just taken up pickleball. Part of the Clore Leadership cohort 2026/27.
Co-Director · she/her
Suzie Boavida
Former medical doctor turned film and TV executive. Helped manage the Harry Potter franchise globally at Warner Bros. MBA, London Business School.
Associate Artist · she/her
Lynn Lu
Performance artist shown worldwide, from SFMOMA to National Gallery Singapore. Leads the performative side of our projects.
Associate Artist · he/him
Guy Harries
Composer, sound artist and performer. Senior lecturer in music and co-director of CPAD. Brings the sonic experiments to our workshops.
Walking Tours · he/him
Simon Cole
Artivist, writer and walking artist. Founder of Hackney Tours, exploring a changing city in a changing world.
Doing something
that matters?
Let’s talk about what we could make together.