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November 2020
Fixing It: The Beauty of Broke
This is an online event. How can brokenness make us reflect on what is beautiful? Bring along something broken and celebrate your objects beyond repair by thinking of creative ways to display them, discussing and remembering their usefulness and place in your life, and writing short poems to celebrate both their beauty and their brokenness. All of this will form part of an ongoing installation in the window of 310 New Cross Road. Sue Mayo is an artist and facilitator…
Find out more »Smoke Screen
This is an online event. What is the aroma of colonialism? In this event you will be introduced to the pungent history of tobacco cultivation and trade, slavery and colonialism, by academic Professor Nick Ridout from Queen Mary University of London. Learn about the Atlantic Slave Trade and the interlinked histories of tobacco cultivation and export in the USA and the UK. Guyanese and Scottish poets Sandra Agard and Miriam Nash will guide you in an at home smelling workshop.…
Find out more »Tiny manyings for Riddley
This is an online event. Join artist Julieann Worrall Hood and researcher Paul March-Russell as they discuss Paul’s research and interest in Russell Hoban’s extraordinary novel Riddley Walker. They will also be discussing how Julieann will respond to the novel, with a family art making day in 2021, using found materials to create proposals for a new monument to Ridley Walker, set in the East Kent landscape. Check back on the Being Human festival website in 2021 for details of…
Find out more »History is ‘Mental’ Café
This is an online event. Even though it provides powerful insight into why and how we came to see ourselves the way we do, the history of science and medicine is many times overlooked in popular conversation. In this café, the neuroscientist Pedro Ferreira and the psychotherapist Mary Heffernan — who both find themselves researching the history of mental health at Birkbeck, University of London — will explore what the humanities can teach us about the ways of knowing ourselves,…
Find out more »Alternative Aberdeens
This is an online event. Come along to this online creative writing workshop and 'in conversation' event and be inspired to imagine alternative pasts, presents and futures in Aberdeen. In the afternoon (16:00–18:00) you can attend a creative writing workshop, giving you the opportunity to create different kinds of alternative worlds with the guidance of professional authors and spoken word artists. Then in the evening (18:30–19:30) authors will be 'in conversation', discussing their writing practice, how they create alternative worlds…
Find out more »Alternative Narratives on Colonial Collections [Postponed]
This is an online event. Please note: due to illness this event has been postponed. If you have booked already please get in touch with the organiser directly. Come and learn about the hidden histories of museums and how they are not always neutral spaces. Young people will be working with spoken word and visual artists alongside researchers and curators to reinterpret items in the museum collections and provide an alternative narrative to some of our colonial collections. Come and…
Find out more »Convent Calling!
This is an online event. A verbatim play about Indonesian nuns. We've all entered new worlds: suddenly living in intimate quarters with a few other people, trying to reconstruct a good life together despite the daily friction of personal differences. For Indonesian nuns, this situation is not an exception but a way of life. This virtual theatre and dance performance offers a glimpse into their world, including the cultural, moral, and emotional aspects of pursuing the good life together. Built…
Find out more »Sustainhoods: Young People’s Visions for Sustainable Neighbourhoods
This is an online event. Tired of feeling anxious about climate change and environmental doom? So are the team behind Sustainhoods. They asked young people from around the world to tell their visions for how to make their neighbourhoods more environmentally sustainable. This film follows the best proposed ideas and their development with a team of experts in theatre, social science and video. Watch the film online and then attend a Q&A session with the film’s creative team. The film…
Find out more »Yum Yum: Get a Taste for History (Morning)
This is an online event. Get a taste for history! Discover our connections to colonial horticulture and food. Try some familiar and more unusual food items that have travelled continents and to settle in the UK. Compare their changes of names and preparations along the way. Guess, taste and tell in this Zoom event. This event is part of the Being Human series ‘Mind Your Languages’ run by Race Council Cymru in partnership with Bangor University. ‘Mind Your Languages’ explores…
Find out more »Fixing It: Beauty through Mending
This is an online event. Learn how mending textiles can enhance their beauty with Rose Sinclair. This workshop will look at how we can enhance things we mend by considering how the repair might beautify them. Rose will use a range of techniques that can be applied to enhance and repair almost any textile object. A kit and instructions will be provided to support your darning and to participate all you need is a garment in need of repair which…
Find out more »From the Earth to the Moon in 10 Easy Steps
Please note due to Dundee being moved into a Tier 3 for COVID-19, this event will no longer be able to take place in person. An alternative online format is available, please see below for details and note the updated way to book a spot. An homage to experimental film, From the Earth to the Moon in 10 Easy Steps (2020) by local artist Chris Gerrard splices together classic clips with some new footage to tell the true story of…
Find out more »Yum Yum: Get a Taste for History (Afternoon)
This is an online event. Get a taste for history! Discover our connections to colonial horticulture and food. Try some familiar and more unusual food items that have travelled continents and to settle in the UK. Compare their changes of names and preparations along the way. Guess, taste and tell in this Zoom event. This event is part of the Being Human series ‘Mind Your Languages’ run by Race Council Cymru in partnership with Bangor University. ‘Mind Your Languages’ explores…
Find out more »In Touch: Workshop
This is an online event. What can be learnt from the heightened awareness of (and restrictions surrounding) touch which characterised experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic? Might the experiences of Deafblind communities, and those who rely on their sense of touch to navigate the world, aid our shared understanding of this new normal? How can different experiences of touch reshape audio-visual art practices and cultivate communication tools and strategies? This interactive workshop, co-developed and presented alongside the 'In Touch' exhibition with…
Find out more »Sugar, Sugar
This is an online event. It may taste delicious and sweet but how sweet is the history of sugar? Learn about the interlinked histories of slavery, sugar plantations, processing, export and consumption from academic Dr Malcolm Cocks, Dulwich College and the University of the West Indies. We’ll consider the taste of sugar in its’ different states in an at home tasting workshop and see what raw sugar cane plants and sugar beet looks like. Appreciate the art of spun sugar…
Find out more »Tale of Two Houses
This is an online event. In line with 'being human', it is time to explore what 'being deaf' means, by way of sign language performances. You are invited to this family-friendly online performance of the ‘Tale of Two Houses’. A story for children and families about accepting others and celebrating our diversity. After the show, families can meet the cast for a Q&A and do an art activity that can be emailed in to become a community patchwork to be…
Find out more »The Life and Politics of Monica Sjöö
This is an online event. Monica Sjöö, artist and activist wrote that. ‘the Earth’s Spirit does not move in a straight line, but in constantly flowing serpentine and spiral movements’. Join this discussion to explore readings, film clips, poetry, songs and the politics of the feminist Monica Sjoo (1938-2005). View her paintings, drawings and graphic works to discover her world. At a time when feminists are increasingly turning to spiritual imagery as activism, this event will uncover the forgotten history…
Find out more »Sustainhoods: Young People’s Visions for Sustainable Neighbourhoods
This is an online event. Tired of feeling anxious about climate change and environmental doom? So are the team behind Sustainhoods. They asked young people from around the world to tell their visions for how to make their neighbourhoods more environmentally sustainable. This film follows the best proposed ideas and their development with a team of experts in theatre, social science and video. Watch the film online and then attend a Q&A session with the film’s creative team. The film…
Find out more »Speak Up!
This is an online event. Take part in a public celebration of multilingualism where all generations can appreciate the gifts of cultural diversity as a bridge between colonial pain and gain. This closing event for 'Mind Your Languages' will focus on the wealth of languages within the diaspora of Black, African, Asian and other UK minority ethnic communities that experienced colonisation. Various artists, including children and families present spoken word, songs and other creative expressions to celebrate multilingualism in the…
Find out more »Keep Laughin-With Gavin Lilley
This is an online event. In line with 'being human', it is time to explore what 'being deaf' means, by way of sign language performances. For those 16+ who enjoy a good laugh, come along for an evening of stand-up comedy that will have you laughing for days and thinking for life. Audience members will discover inclusive communication strategies and forge a new world where hearing and deaf audiences enjoy the arts together.
Find out more »A Poetic Constitution for Scotland: Performance
This is an online event. Over the course of the Being Human festival, the University of Glasgow gathered public responses to the question of what being Scottish/New Scottish means today, and how this may be best expressed in a poetic national constitution. To mark St Andrew’s Day, tune in to an online premiere of a play inspired and informed by these public responses. The performance will be followed by an interactive discussion with the creative team, including the playwright Effie…
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