Moving Words:
Dance company StevensonThompson will work with young people from St Nicholas School for special needs, a group of women over 50 and students from the University of Kent to create a cross-generational flash-mob style dance that will demonstrate how words and meaning can be expressed through movement and non verbal or textual language. This will be performed at the Wise Words Festival.
Renga:
Fiona Lesley Bennett with Renga Master Subhadassi will invite groups drawn from the community (cross-generationally and demographically) into the shared writing process of Renga. These groups will come together at the festival as “informed” participants who can then support others through the process.
Words of Advice:
Fiona Lesley Bennett will also spend a further time within Canterbury gathering stories of experience and moments of advice that participants would like to ‘pass on’. Fiona would look to collect the sometimes hidden wisdom and knowledge that lies in the hearts and minds of those living or passing through the city with the aim of transposing that wisdom into poems and verses that can then be offered back to a wider audience through poetry inspired installations which will be titled ‘A Word of Advice’.
100 Journals:
Workers of Art will work with community groups across Canterbury to create a 100 beautifully crafted journals that will then be released into the world. Each book will invite those that find it to contribute words of wisdom. These can be drawn, collaged, written, poetic, torn or included in any other form. The person who writes on the last page will be tasked with sending the journal back to the Beaney Gallery where it will find its permanent home. These journals will then inspire the poem that John Siddique will write for the people of Canterbury - to be heard first at the Wise Words Festival.
Swirling Words:
Lemn Sissay will facilitate workshops with a group of young people who are currently in care. These workshops will result in short poems that will be turned into vinyl and displayed as “swirling words” on the inside walls of the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge during and beyond the Wise Words Festival.
Living Libraries:
Instead of a book readers will have the opportunity to borrow poet Lemn Sissay & others from the living library at Lounge on the Farm this year. Festival goers can share tea and cake and conversation – swapping stories of wisdom that will inspire the poem that Lemn will write for the Wise Words Festival. This event will delivered in partnership with Lounge on the Farm.
I Gift This Book to You:
100 books will be placed in public spaces around the city. In each will be a label stating – This is a book that I have read and enjoyed and would like to pass on to you. Read it (if you are drawn to do so) and then leave it where you found it for someone else to enjoy.
