BOOK VIA EVENTBRITE

About Ayesha’s workshop Place, Poetry and the Pen

As writers, we often want to encapsulate the feel of a place. Using writing and drawing exercises, we will explore how to document spaces that we feel a connection to, and will look at ways to record places to come back to, and work into, later.

As a disabled writer, I find that I work with multiple restrictions, something which can be difficult but which can also encourage creativity, and help me to find new ways of working. I used to work against myself in a way, trying to fit into places which in many ways are not built to accommodate me. However, once I started working with my restrictions and leaning into them, a process which changed my writing and drawing styles, I found my practice improving as a result, and found myself enjoying the process a lot more.

In this workshop, I will share various writing and drawing exercises, a little bit of theory, and a process which I have found useful to document places, whilst working with my body. I see my body as a tool, similar to the way I would view a pen or paintbrush, with neither positive or negative connotations. Leaning in to this has expanded my ideas of what writing and drawing can be. Through the exercises, we’ll explore these ideas, and learn from each other.

There will be plenty of opportunities for sharing and discussion. The space will be relaxed, with no pressure to join in.

Please bring materials for writing/drawing, if this is accessible for you, and you feel comfortable to. This could be a pen and paper, or you could work digitally. However, no worries if not, as the writing and drawing exercises will be quite experimental so there will hopefully be something for everyone, and if not we can work together to create new ideas. Feel free to listen if you would prefer. No experience needed!

Read your work at a sharing spot

There are five sharing spot slots available at the Salon and if you’d like to share your work please complete the following form by 11am, Friday 1 November:

https://forms.gle/ixCHKMhmBBLszhEe9

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.

About Ayesha Chouglay

Ayesha Chouglay is a writer and multimedia artist with a passion for storytelling. Her work often focuses on illness and disability, bringing emotion to overly clinical subjects, and opening up safe spaces for conversation. She is interested in the ways that disability changes our perception of the world, and works with perceived imperfections to create new ways of looking.

Access Information

• Auto-captions
• Self Descriptions
• BSL Interpretation
• Comfort Breaks

With thanks to the City Bridge Foundation for supporting the CRIPtic x Spread the Word Salon and Connect through Connectivity.