Maisha Stories: No Place Like Home BPOC Workshops - Hastings Library

Come share your stories of food, culture and hobbies with artists from Writing Our Legacy and Diversity Lewes in this free workshop series exploring culture and heritage, and health and wellbeing at Hastings Library.

• Each session will involve different creative writing and making opportunities
• The sessions will provide experience in oral storytelling, creative writing, and various visual arts
• We will also produce a book and an exhibition by the end, using allthe work produced
• All sessions will be fun and open to all – no experience is necessary
• The workshops are aimed at BPOC people living, working or studying in Sussex.

Please note: This workshop is only open to Black, Asian or ethnically diverse/BPOC writers. *BPOC stands for ‘Black people, People of Colour’ and is a self-identifying term. While we use the term BPOC, we acknowledge the limitations of this terminology. At the core of our network is the aim to address and overcome systemic barriers that our members face directly or indirectly based on their ethnic or national identities, race or perceived racial identities, or the colour of their skin as per the Equality Act of 2010. This includes people who identify as Black, brown, people of colour, Global Majority, mixed-race, multiple heritage and/or are from the Global South, and/or are East and South-East Asian, West Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern, African, African-Caribbean, Caribbean, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Indigenous, or First Nations, and diasporas.

Workshop date and descriptions:

Sat 27 Sept – Sound of memory. Facilitator: Akila Richards
Do you remember the sounds of home, of landscapes? What sounds do you remember of a voice, bangles ringing when lifting you, or the water running for a bath? Lets explore sounds of memories and how these create a sense of home and belonging or maybe sadness or even anger. Let build short stories around it and record your memories. It'll be fun and playful and maybe even surprising. Come and join us for this joyful journey of sounds, memory, writing and sharing. See you there.

Accesibility

The Hasting Library has Accessible public toilet(s) and Disabled access.

For more information or enquiries, you can contact them 10am to 5pm Monday to Saturday on 0345 6080196.

See the rest of the workshops and locations:

Maisha Stories workshops - Seven Sisters Country Park

About the artists

Liz Ikamba is a Congolese-British singer, artist and performer who weaves a personal, ancestral story into her music and creative work, narrating her heritage and experience as a dual-heritage woman and artist living in the UK.

She is also a trauma-informed creative facilitator with over twelve years of experience in community-development and participatory Arts practice. In more recent years, she has been particular interested in working to decolonise individual and collective conditioning around identity and race; to help unlock creative potential, and to inspire celebration of life in all it’s diversity.

Remi Graves is a poet and drummer. A former Barbican Young Poet, their work has been featured on BBC Radio 4, at St Paul's Cathedral and in various anthologies. Past commissions include ‘a well worn path’ for Arthouse Jersey and ‘On Breathing’ for Barbican. Remi has led courses at The Poetry School, Queercircle and facilitates in schools and local community spaces. Their debut pamphlet, 'with your chest', was published by fourteen poems in 2022. Remi won the inaugural 2024 Prototype Prize

About Maisha Stories Project

From November 2024 to December 2025, we will work with Black, Asian and ethnically diverse people of colour (BPOC) communities based along the South Downs National Park and East Sussex to co-produce and co-deliver a series of 12 monthly storytelling and placemaking workshops in Brighton’s Moulsecoomb, Hastings and Lewes aimed at people of all ages and backgrounds including families.

Project partners are Writing Our Legacy (WOL) and Diversity Lewes and The Rest Experience and working with academic Dr Jess Moriarty. Look out for our updates on how you can get involved if you are living, working or studying in these areas.

The project builds on the Maisha Stories: No Place Like Home project devised in 2024 by Amy Zamarripa Solis (WOL), Tony Kalume (Diversity Lewes) and Dr Jess Moriarty and delivered with Akila Richards founder of The Rest Experience.

The project has delivered a workshop series in Lewes, supported by University of Brighton’s Community – University Partnership Programme and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), AHRC Impact Account and Arts Council England.

The project has also delivered workshops, in partnership with Sussex Police, funded by IGNITE Acceleration fund and Policy Support Fund.

Why Maisha Stories?
In Swahili, the name Maisha represents the value, diversity, and beauty of life, the profound meaning of life and the energy, power, and essence of being. It is a name celebrated across African societies and more widely that inspires connections between human existence, nature and the whole community of life. It acknowledges these interconnections as precious and vital and should be celebrated.

Project Aims
The project seeks to connect individuals and build new communities. Storytelling, in particular, can be a catalyst for community, enabling people to share their lives and experiences and combating feelings of loneliness. We want to address the inequality of access to the natural environment in the UK.

Writing Our Legacy CIC is an arts and heritage organisation that enables Black, Asian and ethnically diverse/BPOC* people to tell their story through writing and the creative arts. We were established in 2012.

We give writers and other creatives a platform and community to feel supported, nurtured and evolve their work through the creative pipeline, from start to publication. We share stories and heritage of diaspora communities and bring them to life through various art forms for audiences to learn and take part in cultural heritage.

We are an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.