In response to this years theme; ‘Reclaiming Narratives', CHWA has collaborated with London Arts and Health to invite artists/practitioners to interpret this theme in a way that spoke to them in the context of creative health.
Find out more about each of the artists/practitioners that have been selected to share their audio, visual or text-based interpretations of 'Reclaiming Narratives' below.
You can also watch our Black History Month 2024 vlog with Clancy Williams, Angels-Without-Wings.
Zahraa Scott
Image © Zahraa Scott
Read Zahraa's blog 'Claiming the Border as Central' here
Biography:
Zahraa is a 3rd year postgraduate trainee Existential psychotherapist currently researching how the hopes, dreams and prayers of ancestors impact the lives of their descendants. With a background in continental philosophy and comparative literature, combined with her own mixed racial heritage, her academic interests involve bringing unique combinations of ideas together with the aim of understanding what it means to be human in new, decolonial ways. Zahraa is particularly interested in mental health as holistic practice, and so also works for Camden & Islington Recovery College where she teaches courses on a range of mental health and wellbeing topics, using her own lived experience of recovery to support, and connect with, the North London community.
Writerz and Scribez
Image © Writerz and Scribez
Watch 'BLACK INK' here
Biography:
Writerz & Scribez is a Black-led arts company working at the intersection of art, wellbeing, and equity. We bring transformative experiences to unconventional spaces, engaging underrepresented and underserved communities. We exist to disrupt the meaning of art, where it belongs and who it belongs to. Our work is embedded in participatory art, anti-racism and trauma-informed practice as we drive towards social change across the creative and health sector.
Diana Amma-Gyankoma Abankwah
Image © Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah
Watch 'Disenfranchised Grief' here
Biography:
Born and raised in Botswana, Diana Amma Gyankoma Abankwah is a Ugandan-Ghanaian solo dance artist, painter, writer, musician, and interdisciplinary artist based in Stoke-on-Trent where she emigrated from Rwanda in 2022. Diana's practice is an experimental blend of live performance art that combines experimental cross-genre dance (including Amapiano, tribal fusion, and Bharatnatyam) and music as the primary forms of storytelling. She also fuses voice; physical theatre; drag; immersive technologies; and social commentary on generational trauma, spirituality and repressed queerness. Her work seeks to challenge and resist current portrayals and restrictions on Black African identity and performance art.
Arowah Cleaver
Image © Arowah Cleaver
Read Arowah's blog 'Reclaiming Narratives' here
Biography:
Arowah is an award-winning musician, activist and creative health practitioner. They were Resident Musician at St George’s and Queen Mary’s Hospitals from 2022-2023, where they worked with the hospital community to bring joy and emotional release. As a composer they’ve been recognised by the Steve Reid Award and an Ivors Composer Award Nomination, have been commissioned for works premiered around the world and have been interviewed by the likes of the BBC, NPR and Bandcamp. They are also a trained sound healer and somatic coach.
Nike Opal
Image © Nikẹ Opal
View Nike's work 'To Smile Again' here
Biography:
Nikẹ Opal is a Non-Binary Multimedia Artist and Visionary. From digital illustration to sculpting, they occupy multiple creative realms. Their work revolves around themes of identity and living authentically.
Alexandrina Yewande Hemsley
Image © Alexandrina Hemsley
Alexandrina's submission will be shared later this month...
Biography:
Alexandrina Yewande Hemsley’s interdisciplinary creative practice deep dives towards the sensorial and bodily as ways to find breath and voice amidst the unjust and inequitable. Alexandrina’s works have been commissioned by Dance City, Somerset House, TheaterForman, Sadler’s Wells and Cambridge Junction amongst others. Her writing has been widely published. Most recently, her essay, Feeling My Way Through Several Beginnings is in Performance, Dance and Political Economy. Eds. Katerina Paramana and Anita Gonzalez (Bloomsbury Press). Alexandrina’s organisation Yewande 103 foregrounds overlaps between creativity and mental health. 'Yewande' means, 'mother has returned’, and our ethos blooms around intergenerational, cyclical patterns of expression and repair.
For more coverage on the Black History Month commissions, please visit CHWA's Instagram page.