NOTE: The end time of this workshop has changed to 5pm.
Why should we make art from the archive? Why should we care? How can creativity serve history and vice versa? How do we write into the gaps left by history? What happens when artefacts are removed from their cultural contexts and audiences? Where does the line between poetry, history and myth sit? How does all this sit with our understanding of national memory and education?
We will be writing from research exercises based on the archival sources within the gallery. The participants will identify areas of silenced or marginalised narratives within the archive and creatively respond to them. The morning will be spent utilising writing techniques that best problematise the language of the archive, that help give voice to silenced narratives. The afternoon will be spent putting these techniques into practice along with mixed-media approaches to archive work.
Lydia Hounat is a British-Algerian writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in HOBART, MAI Journal: Feminism & Visual Culture, and The Babel Tower Notice Board. She edits interdisciplinary art zine, SOBER. and is currently curating the French and Amazigh collections at Manchester Poetry Library.
Prerana Kumar is an Indian writer who has recently completed her MA in Creative Writing at UEA. She has recently been shortlisted for Nine Arches Press’ Primers scheme and has been published in Magma, Barren, Ink Sweat & Tears amongst others. She writes about how one’s sense of identity hinges on home, memory, desire, and the tenuousness of intergenerational inheritance.
Fahad Al-Amoudi is a poet and editor of Ethiopian and Yemeni heritage based in London.
All are Squad grads.
Note: This workshop is only open to members of the Writing Squad. It is not open to the general public.
