Sandy Abdelrahman and I invite you to come along to our weekly workshops to explore identities, sense of belonging and representation through various creative activities and take part in a full-day doll-making workshop! Learn new skills, let your creative juices flow and be part of a lovely community of people who also consider themselves 'Others'. The workshops will take place in Central London on August 16 and August 23, from 6:30 pm to 9 pm, and on a Saturday in September to be confirmed, from 11 am to 5 pm.

You can sign up on this link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/383338354337

The workshops consist of a variety of group dynamics and short exercises that will be followed by art-making sessions in which participants will learn how to make dolls from different materials such as fabric, paper and clay. All the pieces created by the participants will form part of a collective artwork that will be exhibited in the future to increase awareness and support for members of the 'Other' ethnic groups in London.

These workshops are aimed at people who consider themselves as 'Others' and who have lived experiences of otherness. All the artworks created during the workshops will take part in a collective exhibition and will be photographed for the social media, website, marketing and impact report of the project.

LOCATION, DATES AND TIMES

Evening Workshops

Dates: August 16 and August 23

Time: 6:30 pm to 9 pm

Location: Marchmont Community Centre, 62 Marchmont St, London WC1N 1AB

Saturday Workshop

Dates: September 3

Time: 11 am to 5 pm

Location: Story Garden, , Ossulston St, Somers Town, London NW1 1DF

Be aware that the workshops will be photographed and short video clips will be taken for marketing purposes.

COVID

In line with current government advice, restrictions due to Covid-19 have been lifted across the UK. Wearing masks is a personal choice. If you are experiencing symptoms or test positive, we would ask you to consider the community and stay at home. We do not have a stock of tests at the venue, but masks and sanitising gel will be available.

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A year ago, we decided at home to go into self-isolation due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We did it two weeks before the UK government finally realised that in order to contain the virus they needed to force everyone to stay home. We were called naive, paranoid, and a very British, very pro-Brexit person told me that it was very unlikely that Britain would go into lockdown because the government couldn't do that to our economy. Always the "Money-Before-People" mindset. A year later, there are hints of things going back to some sort of normality very soon. You can see it in people's moods and behaviours, and also in how businesses have started their advertising campaigns with renewed hope. A lot has happened over the last 12 months, a lot has changed. But, with this feeling of things soon "going back" to normal, what will happen to all the lessons we were supposed to have learnt?

We clapped, we marched, we masked up, we turned our homes into online activism headquarters while they were also used for work or homeschooling. It has been exhausting. There are days when I don't even feel like opening social media apps because I'm fed up. And I have a fear of becoming numb and jaded. In a year when the Creative Industries has taken the hardest hit since probably WWII, the only thing that has kept me going is having a sense of purpose.

I assigned myself the task of helping as many people as I could during these difficult times. I've donated and I've volunteered, but I've also created tools to educate and empower other creatives to achieve their potential as change-agents. I will never tire of saying that our industry is only as weak as its weakest link. If we want a better and stronger industry, we all need to grow together.

In this effort to contribute to bettering the Creative Industries and supporting my peers, I designed a series of workshops aimed at giving fellow creatives the tools they need to run their projects more efficiently and with agency and help them be more productive. Good intentions are no longer enough, we need actions.

This past weekend, I ran the pilot of my workshop on Social Impact for Creatives where I taught a group of creatives what social impact means, how to design creative projects for social transformation and how to run a socially conscious practice.

I now offer these workshops, alongside webinars and one-on-one mentoring sessions to any photographer or creative interested in running their projects and businesses with an aim on improving the world.

If you are interested, you can find out more on this link.

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I write a Blog about my experiences working in the Creative Industries where I talk about the industry and the business of photography through interviews to other creatives, features on fellow photographers and opinion pieces on social issues. Subscribe and start receiving my posts plus behind the scenes images of my work in your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and I will only use your email to send you the weekly newsletter.