Book below for this in person workshop. Please note spaces are limited, only book if you are sure to come. If you are unable to afford the ticket price, email contact@mosaicrooms.org for a free ticket.

Join us for this writing workshop, organised with the87press and Makan, that embeds writing as a practice of liberation within a global critical context: the tradition of the oppressed.

Facilitated by Azad Ashim Sharma, Luke Williams, Rogelio Braga, Sarona Bedwan, and Hadeel Himmo, the workshop encourages the exploration of contemporary literary formation with a focus on aesthetics and politics. How does literature inspire and create solidarity between disparate peoples in increasingly hostile and turbulent contexts? How do specific literary forms (for example, a lyric poem or a thesis of critical theory) encourage solidarity’s building in a way that disavows (b)ordering whilst also exposing the frames of inherited perception from dominant models of power? How should we reimagine our own processes of writing when we consider our writing as invested in alter-political models of solidarity-building, rights-formation, and aesthetic justice?

As the 21st century continues apace, many artists and writers turn to different textures of literary form to pursue and express solidarity with the oppressed and in this workshop we want to explore how the tradition of the oppressed can provide a way into writing, suitable for any level of writer and reader. The only requirement is a commitment to attend the workshop and read course materials in advance.

Materials for the workshop will be sent upon booking.

Sarona Bedwan has a Masters degree in Art & Politics from Goldsmiths University. She has been published in Berfrois, MAP Magazine, the 87press’ Digital Poetics series, KOHL among other platforms. Her debut poetry collection, Why so few women on the street at night, published by the87Press, is a queer phenomenology of collective Palestinian futurisms and memory building. She is the Outreach & Programmes Manager at Makan.

Rogelio Braga is an exiled playwright, novelist, essayist, publisher, and human rights activist from the Philippines. They had published two novels, a collection of short stories, and a book of plays before leaving the archipelago in 2018. Braga was a fellow of the Asian Cultural Council in New York for research on political resistance in theatre and performance across Southeast Asia in 2016.  Their works were read and performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila, Mercury Theatre in Colchester, National Theatre Studio, and Soho Theatre. Miss Philippines (New Earth Theatre) is their first play written entirely in the English language was recently awarded by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain in their inaugural New Play Commission Scheme. Braga currently lives and writes in London as a refugee under the Convention.