University of Gloucestershire

Call for Creative Writing submissions!

Heritage. What does it mean to you? Family, identity, history… or something more?

The 2019 UOG Creative Writing Anthology – Heritage: New Writing VIII– is inviting prose, poetry and artwork submissions connected to the theme of ‘Heritage’ fromMonday 4thFebruary to Friday 8thMarch 2019. If you’re a student, employee or alumni of the University of Gloucestershire or Humber College, Canada, we want to hear from you!

See here for more details: https://uniofglos.blog/creativewriting/anthology/2019-heritage/and email submissions to heritageanthology@gmail.com.

Can’t wait to read your poetry!

Maria Stadnicka

Who We Are

Nobody belongs, de facto, to just one place, one culture. Our existence is defined by the involuntary interactions with the world in a continuous change, but we like to believe that we do belong. To a place, a space which can be defined and referred to. And when one belongs ‘somewhere’, everything seems easier to quantify, categorise. And, then, it becomes familiar. The common familiarity which emerges through similitude in language, taste, points of view, landscape brings people closer and it helps to build that sense of togetherness.

Most tragedies have been born out of rejection, out of a deep sense of ‘non-belonging’ and people felt mostly bereaved when they realised their uprooting. The recent developments in Europe, with Brexit, in North America, with Trump’s Wall, and across the world in Myanmar, Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Ukraine, Syria, Peru show that we are ‘on the move’ at a global scale. Politics and economics drive the migration at unprecedented levels and can cement a deep sense of social instability.

Millions of people move from one place to another and remain trapped in the complex process of social migration. In 2017, nearly a quarter of a million people came to Britain. And each person brought in a new narrative with elements of uniqueness and subjectivity. We could say that, in 2017, hundreds of thousands of stories came to Britain too. Untold life experiences, unheard voices; hundreds of years of education, culture, music and skills.

And this is the main focus of ‘Who We Are’ a project initiated by the artist Jen Whiskerd from University of Gloucestershire (UoG) supported by many art students, University of Winchester, illustrators, bookmakers, printers, writers, researchers, photographers. Using eight stories about migration (told by Adelaide Morris, Shelley Campbell, Fumio Obata, Anita Roy, Dolores Phelps, Maria Stadnicka, Ro Saul, John Stadnicki), the UoG art students (undergraduate and postgraduate courses) have produced a brilliant book which will be launched this weekend at Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire.

Photograph: ©Emma Evans, 2018

The book, printed by Emma Evans UoG, Pittville Press, is a collection of poetry, photography, drawings, journal notes, animation.

The event is free and will take place at the Walled Garden Room, Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire /

Saturday 20th Jan. 2018, at 2pm.

Come along to share your story and enjoy the launch or just to listen and to be inspired!

It has been my privilege to be part of this.

Maria Stadnicka, 2018

A home, a home. I give my kingdom for a home.

‘Migration – Stories / A Cultural Exchange / Workshop’, Stroud, Gloucestershire, Museum in the Park

Drawing: Maria Stadnicka, November, MMXVII

Migration Stories – Cultural Exchange Project initiated by Univ. of Gloucestershire at Museum in the Park

A week to go! 12th November 2017 from 10.30 am!

So happy to be part of this and to support an excellent project!

Migration Stories / A Cultural Exchange which celebrates the diversity and the powerful cultural impact of our migrants’ stories and experiences.

‘Spoken languages can both unite and separate human kind. Through education we can learn to speak other languages and this entitles us to appreciate cultures around us. However, linguistics alone are just one conduit of understanding – our sense of what is to be human in the world is also built on non-linguistic cultural experiences – we learn through stories, legends, music, food, dance, festivals, artefacts and images.‘ (Excerpt from Daniel Barenboim, on the 16th July 2017, in an impromptu speech at the Proms Albert Hall.)

Photograph: ©John Stadnicki

12th November 2017 at Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire is the first part of a beautiful cultural project which will continue and will develop over the next three months.

The workshop will start at 10.30am at Museum in the Park and will bring together narrators, MA illustrators, poets, writers and photographers.

At 11am we will invite illustrators, photographers, writers, students to listen and to be inspired by the unique stories and memories of those who have experienced the joy, the pain, the comic, the humane journey of those, amongst us, arrived from somewhere else.

The narrators Anita Roy, Dolores Phelps, Maria Stadnicka, Fumio Obata, Ro Saul, John Stadnicki will tell us their memories.

Lunch time – bring and share food from our own heritage

Photograph: © John Stadnicki ‘Portrait – Mr. Sova’

The afternoon will create opportunities for smaller groups to discuss in detail elements of the stories and will begin to consolidate ideas for creative responses.

The creative responses will be completed by  6th December 2017 and a small dedicated team will produce a beautiful new Riso book, ready for the launch on the 22nd of January 2018.

Partners involved: University of Gloucestershire, University of Winchester, SGS Stroud College, Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire.

We are looking forward to your participation and contribution!

 

 

The next event will on the 22nd November 2017 at Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire: 

Chaired by Dolores Phelps, MPhil/PhD Researcher, Illustration

9.30 Coffee and introductions

10am start

Introduction by Dolores Phelps and Jen Whiskerd

10.15 Presentation by Andrew Melrose

10.45 Presentation by Adelaide Morris

11.15 Presentation by Olivier Kugler

12.00 Lunch

1.00 Presentation by Fumio Obata

1.30 Presentation by Dolores Phelps

2.00 Presentation by TBA OR Panel discussion

2.30 Panel discussion/Q&A – Olivier, Adelaide, Andrew

3pm Closing remarks.

3.30 Close

Come along and get involved!

 

International Times and ‘Imperfect’…pre-election dossier, 19th May 2017

The box arrived. The first books now being sent to the British Library. And, in the middle of it, a new poem published this morning in ‘International Times’ – the newspaper of resistance.

‘A Day at the Office’ – pre-election dossier.

http://internationaltimes.it/a-day-at-the-office/