Embodied Imaginative Methods for Institutional Healing

Description

Embodied Imaginative Methods for Institutional Healing: Knowing/Unknowing Intergenerational Trauma in Education

Free workshop with MALIKA BOOKER FRSL. Opening poetry from DAMI FOLAYAN poet and Cambridge Education researcher & TOYAH DEMI PANTON guest poet and UK future leader

This 2-hour workshop will invite us to carefully imagine new ways of being together in education towards a future of personal and institutional healing. It is difficult to talk about historical intergenerational trauma in education meaningfully and with care. Yet, the harms from past traumas continue to dominate our present conversations and we have many words to name violence, abuse, suffering, discrimination, and microaggressions. While knowing different traumas matters, it is not enough.  We also need to unlearn oppressive ways of the past, demand reparative justice, and (re)learn the legacy of intergenerational joy, and reconnect to the vital forms of collective imagination. In the first hours of the workshop, poet Malika Booker FRSL, will present examples from her experimental and multi-disciplinary arts practice and research, from dance theatre of gay romantic love in the Caribbean, a new poetic human rights declaration co-created with schoolchildren, to collaborative sci-fi vision of the future mixing spoken word and sound.

At the opening, we will also hear from poet Dami Folayan on her scholarship and experiences as a poet, doctoral researcher in Education and consultant for the Close the Gap project. Folayan will draw on her participation at the University Slam, creating spoken word that moves the needle on decolonial higher education towards opening up universities as a place to thrive, not merely survive. We will then listen to guest poet Toyah Demi Panton and her poem “A Lesson in Black History” the poet was specially commissioned to write in response to plans for a new memorial to honour the victims of the transatlantic slave trade and recognise London’s role in the trade itself. To close, Malika will guide participants to explore imaginative ways of writing into different cultures, memorialising, and writing ourselves into the future.

All are welcome. We especially encourage Cambridge undergraduate students, graduates, teaching and research staff, community members, young people, poets, teachers to join us in person. We also welcome academics, scholars, creative and cultural organisers, activists and policy-makers. No prior experience or knowledge of writing or methods required. To join in person, you need to be 18+. The event will also be livestreamed on Zoom. Registration is required as spaces are limited.

Organised & Co-convened by

Poetic Justice Access project, Homerton College

Dr Dita N-Love with co-researcher Sasha Desouza-Willock;

Cultural Studies & Memory Studies Group, Faculty of Education Simina Dragos;

The Race, Ethnicity, & Cultural Heritage Hub (REACH)Wolfson College Dr Kenny Monrose

The Poetic Justice Access project gratefully acknowledges the support of Homerton College, Cambridge Digital Humanities Award and University of Cambridge Public Engagement fund.

Please send enquires to: an564@cam.ac.uk.