This week, we’re looking forward to starting an invitational and light touch series of workshops as part of Jessica el Mal’s commission with the library. Jessica will invite women with experience of migration to explore nature through poetry, music and sound.
On Friday, we braved the wind and rain to visit Formby Woods and Beach with our partners from Venus Charity, sound artist Yasmeen Soudani, and female participants from the sanctuary seeking community.
We recorded the sounds and sights of the forest and ventured onto the beach to take in the Autumn coast, before heading back to the library to warm up over pie and cake for lunch.
Next week, we will be working together to use the experience as a starting point to respond to nature and gardens through poetry, music and sound. We will spend three days together, exploring nature and gardens in poetry books in different languages, discovering plants from around the world, and expressing ourselves through music and sound with musician Rita Kamale and Yasmeen, as well as sharing food and eating together as a collective experience.
About Jessica el Mal
Jessica el Mal is a Manchester-based artist, writer, and facilitator who engages in a multidisciplinary practice through social interaction, critical and historical research, and speculative future imaginaries. Often centred around collaboration, co-curation, and collective knowledge systems, her projects usually include research, workshops, and artwork intended to have a lasting effect and bring people together.