Inspired by Yemi Awosile’s Orishirishi
Free entry & drinks / All Welcome
Stanley Picker Gallery are pleased to stage Disperse – an early-summer’s evening of poetry and prose performed live by professional and ‘first-timer’ writers, who recently participated in a workshop motivated by Orishirishi – the gallery’s current exhibition by textile designer Yemi Awolsile.
Appointed Stanley Picker Design Fellow in 2015, Awosile has developed a new body of research that casts a lens on the insatiable desire to maintain a sense of place and ownership over one’s identity through outward public personas. Exhibited within ‘changing rooms’ in the main gallery space, the title of this work is a Nigerian (Yoruba) word taken from Awosile’s family tribe’s vocabulary and loosely means ‘an assortment of different things’ and the designer’s new collection of textiles – which classify materials as an arrangement of experiences – is just that. Presented as a fitting-rooms style installation of multi-media print, t-shirts and acoustic drapes, each of the writers found themselves drawn to different elements of the orishirishi.
Before putting pen to paper however, the workshop group participated in studio tours and a practical activities in which they trialed some of the printing techniques used by Yemi as fuel for creative writings. This included using her personal blend of disperse dyes – from which our project title takes its name. Outcomes of these experiments will be on display during the performances, and beyond as part of All Blocked Up – a showcase of works produced by other Orishirishi projects participants from local schools, Welmede and The Grange, Kingston University Dancers, and the WI.
The session was led by Stanley Picker Gallery Participation Curator Natalie Kay, with established poet and Rhythm and Muse founder Alison Hill taking the reigns to inspire words from brain to the page. Yemi will be present for the readings and just like the gallery team is “very excited to hear the words spoken aloud!”. We hope that all will join us for what promises to be a lively and eclectic evening.
A complimentary souvenir zine of finished texts and visuals will be available to take home on the night, and later available as a download online.
Contributors include: Daksha Mistry, Cassidy Hogan, Ian Bingham, Emma Thacker, Pauline Lindsey, Jim Dunk, Lillie Bradbury, Ian Downing, and Jenny Simnett.