Formation: Memorials

The place and meanings of memorials, statues, and renowned figures.

The third segment of Formations, our year-long programme delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre, includes events in January and February under the thematic banner – Formation: Memorials, focusing on the memorialisation of people, places, and histories, through statues and monuments and through writing. We will consider memorialisation in locations including the UK, US, and Pakistan, consider renowned figures and the politics of the statues and other public monuments commemorating them, and invite you to join us for conversations, poetry readings, and writing workshops.

Creative Writing Workshop
Wednesday 20 January 2021, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Resilience Writing: Creative Writing Workshop with Postcolonial Studies Centre writer-in-residence Eve Makis

** This event is currently sold out. Please email boningtongallery@ntu.ac.uk if you’d like to be added to the waiting list.**

Join a writing session with Eve Makis exploring identity and the meaning of resilience, taking inspiration from seminal works by Maya Angelou. All levels welcome.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.

Eve Makis is the author of four novels, a life-writing guide and an award-winning screenplay. She’s recipient of the Young Booksellers International Book of the Year Award and the Aurora Mardiganian Gold Medal, her works shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She teaches fiction on the MA in creative writing at Nottingham Trent University where she is writer in residence for the Postcolonial Studies Centre.

Poetry Reading and In Conversation
Tuesday 26 January 2021, 4 pm – 5 pm
Annum Salman: Sense Me, Remembering Incomplete Identities of the Past

Annum Salman is a spoken word poet from Pakistan, who has undertaken her Creative Writing MA in Surrey and is currently residing in Karachi. Her book shares her experiences as Pakistani Muslim woman and a foreigner tackling mental health issues, sexism and racism. In line with the theme of memorials, Annum will be joining us live from Pakistan to read from her collection Sense Me and discuss identity, tackling racism and sexism, and her relationship with the UK and Pakistan as a Muslim woman. She will be introduced and in conversation with Ramisha Rafique, postgraduate research student at NTU.

Watch here.

Roundtable discussion
Wednesday 3 February 2021, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Roundtable: Slavery and Public History in the UK and US – A Conversation with Dr Jessica Moody and Professor Stephen Small

Slavery and Public History in the UK and US – A Conversation with Dr Jessica Moody and Professor Stephen Small. Chaired by Dr Jenny Woodley, with Purnachandra Naik.

The histories of both the UK and the USA are inextricably bound up with histories of enslavement and of the enslaved. And yet, both countries have failed to fully recognise or interrogate these pasts. Over recent months activists and campaigners have forced a reckoning with the symbols of this history, from the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, to the fall of numerous Confederate statutes in the United States. They have made headline news and provoked debate about what should be done with monuments to enslavers and what should fill the gaps in our public history.

This online event will bring together two leading scholars of public history and collective memories of slavery. Jessica Moody and Stephen Small will join us for a conversation about histories of slavery and their place in contemporary Britain and the USA.

Watch here.

Creative Writing Workshop
Wednesday 17 February 2021, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Writing Statues: Creative Writing Workshop with Postcolonial Studies Centre writer-in-residence Eve Makis

** This event is currently sold out. Please email boningtongallery@ntu.ac.uk if you’d like to be added to the waiting list.**

Creative writing workshop inspired by controversial statues. What would a statue say if it could talk? Would it be indignant about its removal? Curse its creator? What stories could it tell you? What late night assignations has it witnessed? Come along and make things up. Express yourself about public art in a creative way.

All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.

Formation: Memorials

1 Jan - 28 Feb 2021

Formation: Memorials

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