A dynamic workshop with interdisciplinary artist Niharika Pore, offering exercises to reignite creative writing for disabled writers, and an opportunity to share your work at the Salon open mic. BSL interpreted.
About Niharika Pore
Niharika Pore (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. Exploring their experiences of disability, race, and queerness through poetry and research, they produce installations documenting fragments of interwoven autonarratives alongside photography, sculpture, and audio-visual work. Their practice is grounded by bodies of water, mapping journeys – both internal and external – within bodily perspectives, responding to sensations of chronic pain and movement. They have worked with arts spaces across London, including Tate, South London Gallery, National Maritime Museum, Deptford People’s Heritage Museum, and Zindabad Zine. They also work in community-focused arts groups, holding space for people from marginalised backgrounds to access creativity, knowledge-building, and community
About the Writers’ Salons:
CRIPtic x Spread the Word is a year-long programme of writers’ salons, led by industry-leading creatives including a workshop, reading and open mic. The Writers’ Salons are run in a partnership between CRIPtic Arts and Spread the Word. The Salons are supported by Scope and Arts Council England.
Come and join Connect through Creativity’s CRIPtic x Spread the Word Salon with Niharika Pore and sign up for the Salon open mic if you’d like to share your work.
How can we keep writing when running on empty?
As disabled writers, we might have to take breaks from our practice in order to manage health needs – or general life situations! When these times happen, how can we find inspiration to keep returning to writing?
This workshop will offer small exercises to kickstart ideas and generate stories from the day to day. It will focus on speculation, working interdisciplinarily across poetry and prose to create experimental fragments of writing.
Read your work at the open mic
There are five open mic slots available at the Salon and if you’d like to share your work please complete the following form by 11am, Friday 2 August: https://forms.gle/YyLjvJctpdnLYUcFA
You’ll be asked to provide your contact details and a short bio and the reading you will be doing which should be no longer than 5 minutes. This is so we can send the work to our BSL interpreters in advance of the session. You can submit these in written English, video or audio file format.
Accessibility:
The Salon takes place on Zoom.
The Salon will be BSL Interpreted by Michelle Wood and Lynne Bateman.
It will also be auto-captioned.
The Salon is a relaxed space. People will be given regular breaks and are able to take additional breaks as needed.
Open Mic participants and guest readers will be asked to self-describe when introducing themselves.
Any images used at the Salon will be described, and Open Mic participants will be asked to describe any slides or images used in their own work.
We cannot guarantee a trigger-free space, and we will request that people participating in the Open Mic slots flag content likely to trigger.
Please email us about any other access needs: [email protected]
FAQs:
What do you mean by deaf and disabled?
When we say deaf and disabled, we include within that neurodivergence, chronic and long-term health conditions and mental health conditions.
How do I sign up to take part in the open mic?
There will be five x 5 minute open mic slots available at each Salon.
In your confirmation email for the ticket you’ll receive a link to complete an open mic application form, which we need you to complete in order to read at the Salon. We ask you in this form to share your writing bio and five minutes of reading material with us – this can be in English written form, or as a video or audio file. We’ll let you know if you have an open mic slot by the Wednesday before the Salon takes place. We ask for this info as it enables us to send work through to our BSL interpreters in advance of the Salon.
If the open mic slots to be oversubscribed and will prioritise writers reading from a range of genres and those who have not read at the Salon before.