Taking Up Space: A Long Table with Gabriella Gay

Taking Up Space: A Long Table with Gabriella Gay

As part of the In the Balance programme – an artist-led series of talks, screenings, and creative workshops radically repositioning our relationship with nature.

Join poet, artist, and creative producer Gabriella Gay for an intimate and engaging evening exploring her relationship with nature and wellbeing as a Black Afro-Caribbean woman in Stoke-on-Trent. Touching on both historical and present-day perspectives, Gabriella will share why it’s so important for Black and Brown people to get out, take up space, and nurture intentional bonds with green spaces.

As part of the evening, Gabriella will present her short film Taking Up Space, developed through her role as Wastelands commissioned artist in collaboration with filmmaker Cynthia Cody, followed by a Long Table conversation on the theme of Nature. First introduced to Staffordshire by Culture & the Long Table is a dinner party structured by etiquette, where conversation is the only course. Everyone in the room has the power to shift the direction of the discussion. Like any dinner party, there may be moments of tension, quiet, and the need to make space for voices less easily heard.

💡 What to expect?

There will be refreshments, reflections, questions – and time to meet new people.

💡 Who is this for?
We welcome a wide and diverse range of people – artists, activists, academics, creatives, community members, or anyone simply curious.

Learn more about Taking Up Space:

🌐 Wastelands/takingupspace

Learn more about Long Table:

🌐 Split-britches/longtable

Learn more about Gabriella:
🌐 gabriellagaywriting.com
🌐 kwanzaacollectiveuk.com

Gabriella Gay is a Trinidad born page-stage poet, artist, trained teacher, creative producer and PhD researcher who is regularly commissioned to perform, write, organise events and facilitate workshops for a wide range of organisations include the BBC , the V&A, the NHS and the National Theatre. She is the founder of Stoke’s Roaming Poets and Kwanzaa Collective UK CIC . She is an associate artist at B-arts, Restoke, and a trustee of the New Vic Theatre. Gabriella has made numerus TV and radio appearances and her work features in shows, exhibitions, advertisements and the Visit Stoke official video. Underlying all of Gabriella's written, performed and socially engaged work is the power of sharing our stories, building community and amplifying the voices of often unheard people and places.

Gabriella is interested in publishing in unusual ways and explored her interest in working in overlooked spaces in her recent TEDx talk at Keele University. Her PhD project , 'Staffordshire's Colonial Connections: Re-imaging Black voices from the archival debris' writes from the fragmented records of Black men and women who lived in Staffordshire. It explores how we can creatively and critically address the silences in Staffordshire's archives.