Chatback

Chatback is a spoken word poetry project that I set up in 2022. The goals of Chatback are:

1. To remove barriers to accessing art, through providing poetry workshops that are non-judgemental, friendly and fun for all.
2. To allow our community to become more comfortable with talking about topics such as mental health, racism and sexuality.
3. Identify and assess what pathways local residents may have to accessing culture, creating new opportunities. 

The first ever round of the project, funded by The Arts for Recovery Centre, provided Stockport residents with 10 spoken word workshops, all coordinated and led by myself. We held sessions in all kinds of community spaces, including a community recycling centre, and a secret allotment on top of a multi storey car park. The workshops themselves were friendly and non-judgemental, and allowed a safe space for participants to be vulnerable and express themselves. The project ended with a zine with poems submitted by participants on the project, and a sharing event when we all looked through the zine, and the poems we wrote along the way. To see more about the project, head to @chat.back on instagram.