D6 invites you to join us for a discussion at Newcastle City Library with artist Henna Asikainen, to explore the ideas and participatory processes that led to our exhibition Delicate Shuttle.

Our journey over the past 18 months with Henna began with Forage, a project with refugee and migrant communities that examined how the plants and seeds that now make up our landscapes were originally taken and foraged from other countries. Henna used this historical context to draw parallels between the ways our environments and our societies have been created.

These thoughts continued with Delicate Shuttle, an installation of white poplar leaves for Newcastle City Library that opened as part of Refugee Week, the European Year of Cultural Heritage and the Great Exhibition of the North. Delicate Shuttle developed through a series of foraging walks with newly arrived and migrant communities in natural landscapes, where participants collected the many leaves that form the installation.

Henna will be sharing her experiences and ideas that informed the work on Thursday 4th October, at Newcastle City Library, and we invite you to join us to celebrate the project. The event will begin at 6pm with the discussion starting at 6.30pm. Also joining us will be poet Dani Watson, reading poems inspired by the conversations she had with participants across the project.