The Oxford Windrush Festival has a thought-provoking series of events starting this Wednesday 22nd June

Wednesday kicks off a programme of events marking Windrush Day 2022, organised by the Oxford Windrush Group, a partnership of various organisations in Oxford working together to celebrate the legacy of the Caribbean migration to the UK on HMS Empire Windrush in 1948.

The annual Windrush memorial lecture will be held at the Pitt Rivers Museum at 6pm this Wednesday. This provocative talk, Reimagining Reparations: A Criminogical Perspective, will be presented by criminologist Dr Martin Gynn and is free to attend; click here to book your ticket now.

From Thursday to Saturday, local theatre troupe Kuumba Nia Arts and Unlock the Chains Collective are performing SOLD at Arts at the Old Fire Station. Told through theatre, song, drumming and dance, SOLD is a masterpiece of Black British theatre that relives the storytelling traditions of the West African griot, with debates and conversation to take place after each performance. Book tickets (from £8) via the Old Fire Station website.

The Caribbean Living Room exhibition at 58 Between Towns Road, Cowley is also open between 10am and 4pm Tuesday - Thursday. Originally created by local groups ACKHI and BK.LUWO to mark the 70th anniversary of the docking of the SS Empire Windrush, this reconstruction of a typical 1960s West Indian front room has proved extremely popular and is now in its third year of running! This exhibition is completely free and is open Tuesdays - Thursdays every week.

For more information on the festival as a whole, visit the Oxford Windrush Group Facebook page.

In case you missed it: we're looking for an experienced workshop facilitator for a community workshop on Oxford's food heritage

The Museum of Oxford and Fusion Arts are currently developing a partnership project on the food heritage of Oxford and its people. The project has originated in work previously undertaken by Fusion Arts and MOX in collaboration with community groups, and we aim for it to be co-designed by representatives of those groups, as well as ones we have not yet worked with. 

Fusion Arts is now looking to commission a freelance participatory workshop facilitator, to run one community workshop in order to kick-start the project in early July. The outcomes of the workshop will be used to further develop a plan for the project.

Further details about this opportunity are available on our website www.fusion-arts.org.

If you are interested in this role, please send your CV, any relevant work experience, and your ideas for the workshop to info@fusion-arts.org. Deadline for submission is 12pm, Tuesday 21st June 2022. 

Get involved in the upcoming Wetland Arts Project events happening in the next few weeks:

Next in this series is a drawing workshop led by local artist Grace Exley, happening at 2pm this Sunday 26th June at Christchurch Meadow. Register for the event and find the rest of the details here.

The Wetland Arts Project is an ongoing series of workshops and events organised by artist and dancer Helen Edwards and The Freshwater Habitats Trust, supported by Fusion Arts. These workshops are a great opportunity to learn more about local flora and get in touch with the natural world around us.

There are a variety of different creative workshops happening over the next few months, including an art and learning workshop at Wytham Woods on Sunday 24th July and a collaging workshop on Saturday 20th August. As well as visual art sessions, there are also a selection of other events including dance and poetry workshops; check out the entire list of events over on eventbrite. They are all free and open to everyone, so be sure to sign up!

Beside the Point exhibition is available in Oxford until Monday 4th July

Showing across two locations: 95 Gloucester Green, and the #WindowGalleries in Friars Entry, these eight artists explore diverse ideas from gender rights to personal histories. The artists included are Renée Adams, Sarah Beeson, Frankie Franklin, Emma Clifton-Brown, Karen Grootz, Kay Lynn Richard Matthews and Sarah Radice. The variety of pieces are the culmination of the artists’ studies on the part-time Warehouse Art School (WAS) Continuing Practice course, based in East Oxford.

From exploring a sense of inner and outer worlds via pencil on paper to the partnering of science and art in order to challenge people’s beliefs, this exhibition covers a vast spectrum of subject matter through eight beautifully unique lenses.

Beside the Point is on display right now in 95 Gloucester Green, OX1 2BU and the #WindowGalleries along Friars Entry in Oxford, OX1 2BZ until the 4th July. Both locations are free and the #WindowGalleries are available to visit every day while 95 Gloucester Green is open Wednesdays–Saturdays. Find more event details here.

 

BODLEIAN LIBRARIES EXHIBTION

Sensational Books is available to visit now at the Weston Library

Rub, stroke, chew, wear, sniff – Sensational Books explores our experiences of the book beyond reading. This exhibition unlocks a whole world of sensory engagement with books structured around six senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and proprioception (the sense of self-movement and body-perception).

Using dynamic and interactive elements from sound artists, tactile displays and even a smell wall, visitors are able to celebrate the book in all its forms. You can also see how early books and manuscripts engaged with the senses in ways similar to more recent works by book artists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Bodleian libraries are showing this exhibition in the Weston Library until 4th December - find more details on their website.