WORD

Saturday 17 June: 

11am-1pm & 2-4pm – Someone Special – at Finsbury Park Trust 225-229 Seven Sisters Road N4 2DA Join local author, illustrator and paper engineer John O’Leary, and artist Irma Irsara for a hands-on family event that combines pop-up design, illustration and wordplay. Make your very own pop-up creations on the theme of ‘Someone Special’. Learn basic mechanisms and how to develop them into more complex designs, all in easy-to-follow steps. The workshops are free and all materials are supplied – just bring your creativity! Suitable for children 5 and upwards along with parents and carers.

1-5pm: Book Cover Design Adult Masterclass @ House of Illustration Learn how to create a dynamic book cover layout using paper cutting and other illustration techniques. £35 full price £30 concession

2-5pm Spoken Word, Mental Health & Activism for SLAMbassadors @ WORD – The Poetry Society cafe  Join us for an afternoon discussing how poetry can bring about positive change in self-care practice and political strategizing.  Our panel of performers and poets, including Hussain Manawer, Deanna Rodger & Cecilia Knapp will be talking ‘Spoken Word, Mental Health & Activism’. This event will be chaired by Nazmia Jamal.

We are Words

Their meaning, their dreaming,

The message they’re streaming.

We use them to shape our lives, as bribes

To make enemies and allies,

We use them to find our tribes.

We are words,

Their story, their song,

They define right and wrong,

Always on the tip of your tongue.

We pin them to the page

We read them to be amazed.

We are words,

They connect us, correct us,

Make us find one another

Yes, they collect us.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

A lie, a promise, a trust.

We are words,

We dance with them through time,

They are our partners in rhyme

Cool, cruel or kind,

The stitching in our story-line

The eloquent ties that bind.

by Paul Lyalls, Word2017 Poet in Residence

Thursday 15 June:

2-5pm – Join Cubitt for their annual Summer Ball at Islington Assembly Hall on this year’s theme ‘Journeys’ – take part in dancing, sharing stories, art exhibitions, making workshops and more! As always accompanied by an abundance of tea, cake and conversation.

This year’s event also sees the premiere of House of Illustration’s ‘Memory Lane Game’ created with older people.

7-9pm at Platform Youth Hub – Cardboard Citizens and Lyrix Organix present Sound Minds Vol. 1 

The madness and badness of 21^st century city living can leave you frantic, cranked up and get your mind spinning.

How do we achieve simplicity and some degree of tranquility?

Within the hive of activity and vanity that is London city?

How can our minds be free?

Maybe music is the key…?

Join us for the live sharing of Sound Minds Vol.1: a concept album for the 21^st century devised, written, produced and performed by young people. Admission Free

Wednesday 14 June 6pm @ St. Luke’s Centre – join Key Changes for  the fabulous #Living Lyrics – Open Mic event 

The Living Lyrics project provides support and encouragement from music industry mentors for young people and young adults in Islington to explore themes around mental health and wellbeing in the context of the issues and causes within their community through poetry, song, spoken word, hip hop, and grime. Living Lyrics is produced by Key Changes, an Islington mental health charity celebrating 20 years of providing music services in hospitals and the community for people experiencing mental health problems. The event will also include Open Mic contributions from Key Changes service users and the St Luke’s Centre local community

For #Word2017 a team of young creative bloggers working with All Change will post poetry and creative writing responding to festival events and performances. Here is their first piece – created after Book End No. 1  on 1 June 2017 – the launch event for this year’s festival:

For a long time she had felt….
Like the observer
The person looking through a spyglass unable to touch what she saw
Voiceless
Bottom of the heap
The invisible ghost along the corridor
A floating planet unlocked out of gravity, desperate for the sun

Until one day a friendly face gave her…
A book that spoke her story
A pen and paper to make her own
A space to dance
A space to create
A tune to play
The notes to make a song.
She was given…
A stage to be be seen
A microphone to be heard.

She had found her centre…
In words
In music
In pictures
In movement
In laughter
In people
She had found herself.

by Naomi Money – #Word2017 Creative Blog Team

Monday 12 June 7pm: All Change presents – Words are Birds at Thornhill Primary School  A fun night of poetry and rhymes for all the family with live performances by Word2017’s poet-in-residence Paul Lyalls and pupils from Thornhill Primary School with very special guest John Hegley. This is a partnership between All Change and Thornhill Primary School as part of their Outer Space programme – a unique initiative, which sees artists working in collaboration with teachers and pupils throughout the year, investigating creative questions through arts activities. £2 Donation to the school on the door.

12-18 June 2017: is London Creativity and Wellbeing Week There is a growing body of evidence indicating the profound effect engagement in the arts and creativity can have on health and wellbeing. The arts bring us alive, nourish our curiosity, help us learn – they change the places in which we are treated – and make them places we might want to be, they can improve the relationship between clinician and patient, and they give us the courage to face our own frailties and strengths. With debates and discussions, performances and exhibitions, tours and practical sessions, London Creativity and Wellbeing Week is an opportunity to find out more, make connections, be inspired, and shape the future of arts, creativity and wellbeing.

12-18  June 2017: Broaden your lexical horizons during the festival by spotting Free Words of the Week around the borough – or join in by putting them on display where you work! There will be a new word for every week of the festival tying into its wellbeing themes. Go to https://www.freewordcentre.com/free-words to find out more and to sign up for weekly posters.

Saturday 10 June – 7pm – join All Change for Words of Wisdom at 27 Dingley Place – a multitude of different local women’s voices – young and old, past and present – come together for an evening of poetry, stories and song – to share pearls of wisdom and a wealth of experiences gathered across the decades. Featuring performances from Pegasus Poetry Group, Inspire! young parents and B Creative Admission Free

Friday 9 June

12.30-3.30pm: The Spanish Civil War (1936-39) was sparked by a military coup led by General Franco against Spain’s elected government. In Britain, the ‘Aid Spain’ movement started to raise funds for food and medical supplies and to help refugees. This exhibition, in partnership with the Marx Memorial Library, showcases six visually stunning campaign banners for ‘Aid Spain’. To complement their Banners for Spain exhibition – join Islington Museum’s  adult art class this afternoon and explore and respond to the banners.

5.30-7.30pm at Platform Youth Hub: Candoco Dance Company invites young people to join them for a free, weekly, creative dance project, suitable for disabled and non-disabled young people. No dance experience is required, just your enthusiasm! Dancing Letters is bringing together the rich worlds of contemporary dance and letter reading and writing to give participants the opportunity to experience different forms of expression, both written and physical.  Participants will take inspiration from letters old and new and work together for eight weeks to create a unique dance performance which will be performed on 30 June as part of the Word Festival finale.