Art & Music
Arts have always been part of our journey as a vibrant movement, creating and recreating windows on our passion for justice, love, community, and culture. Arts are part of how we do our awareness raising and how we Catalyse life-affirming experiences for ourselves and others:
We have had a main focus on:
- Music
- Spoken word
- Performance Art
- Visual Art
- Music Events- (Clubs and Festivals)
- Arts- Skill shares, mutual support networks
We have also integrated arts into our campaigning. In our first lobby of Parliament in the year April 2000 and in 2001, as part of our day of action, we held an Art exhibition in the Jubilee rooms on site to which network members invited their MPs. The art exhibition was on Refugees’ rights it included visual art, performance art, and DJ with then Vinyl Decks mixing and scratching. Being held in Parliament meant this provided a unique talking point between Network members and their MPs. This is just one of many stories over the years of how we have brought arts together with campaigns in radical pioneering expressions that break the usual barriers. The MPs we met that day never forgot us and many of been part of our ongoing lobbying experience. We have big future aspirations and looking forward to the ongoing unfolding journey.
On occasion, we like to combine education and entertainment in our events for Edu-tainment but we also love art for the sake of it without an agenda.
A little bit more about each of these areas:
*****************************************
Music
SPEAK Associated Music Labels
Music- Music SPEAKs
In 2009 we launched Music SPEAKs at the music label side of our work to link music and campaigns and we made a CD to support the SPEAK campaign of corporate accountability. We had both Music SPEAKS acoustic/folk and Music SPEAKs electronic EDM at both stages. Music SPEAKs ran from 2009-2017, (5-6 years). We have since had funding and capacity challenges and have not been able to sustain all we wanted to do with music SPEAKS on a music level but it still exists on a community network level. The artists are still actively supporting each other we are just not releasing and selling music like we did in the past under the Music SPEAKS brand https://www.facebook.com/themusicspeaksto . This may make a comeback in the future, so watch this space.
SPEAK has managed to carry on with a wider campaign on debt money and banking justice though taking our campaign stall to music festivals with the Break the Code collective which we helped catalyse. That has since also developed a music label, in that way we are still supporting and partnering with work with similar ethos. Although, all of the artists from Break The Code collective are from wider backgrounds than SPEAK so do expect to see some slightly more maverik work to be released on this partner label than you may have seen released in the past. With that disclaimer here is our partner’s new site www.breakthecode.co.uk
Music Meets Monastic- we are hoping over 2023-2024 to release some recordings of our monastic liturgy and bring it together with low-fi hip hop/ DNB beats. This is for activists to keep the spiritual energy up in the struggle. In the past, we have had quite an international collaborative lineup for music Saturday nights of our network gatherings (from Jinadu Skinfiltr8or and Gerard the Monk) and whilst we are organising events online we are hoping to record and release.
*************************************************
Spoken Word
For SPEAK, spoken word was always going to be a significant part of the journey of lots of people in the Network. Our events often include spoken word between the sessions and we often feature a dedicated slot for spoken word. We have enjoyed liturgy or lout-ery (like being loud lout in poetic liturgical form) from a Dutch poet connected via SPEAK in Holland Skinfiltr8r ( aka Rik ZuZu) a regular at many of our international gatherings at previous SPEAK events.
Grace Against the Machine By Skinfilt8r Easter 2020- A profound poignant time :
Grace Against The Machine /// isolated EASTER churchsperiment
We have also featured spoken word from world slammer winner Harry Baker at SPEAKathon fundraising cabaret
Here he is with his legendry piece paper people from Palestine:
Harry Baker – Paper People (Palestine Performance)
We have enjoyed/enjoy supporting network members to start in spoken word featuring workshops in spoken word to get people going.
Here are pictures of the spoken word workshop at the SPEAK peace festival where KMT who combine s Hip Hop and permaculture was giving a workshop.
Here is more info about his work with May Project Gardens as it is totally inspirational and links to the theme of our seeding change campaign (LINK).
Partners Inspiration May Project Gardens – Hip Hop and Permaculture
Hip-Hop Garden BBC London= ‘KMT runs a community garden in south London mixing hip-hop with horticulture to introduce youngsters to the merits of gardening. The program which mixes the recording music and growing vegetables will help encourage vulnerable teenagers away from a life of crime.’
Here is another older video of someone called Will Stopha who was key in our spoken word journey and ran many spoken word workshops at our gathering sound check over the years and performance in the Big Dress. He also appears on our Music SPEAKs CD.
WILL STOPHA – ‘ This World made me a Robot’ from Big Face Art on Vimeo.
Spoken word MP3 petition For and Music SPEAKS CD
SPEAK has also woven poetry and spoken word into the way we do our actual campaigns and petitions. We have one example of this from our past Journey and one from our current ongoing journey. We compiled an MP3 petition on corporate accountability of large corporations. We asked everyone to record a spoken word message for corporations to be held more accountable for how their activity impacts social justice and human rights. Along with this campaign, we released an accompanying CD from the music speaks contingent which featured many spoken word artists including will stop. We still have lots of copies of this CD left over from a recent office move. We are happy to send this out in return for donations cover time and postage email admin@speak.org.uk
Take A stanza. In our ongoing debt campaign we have a campaign where we are asking people to record a message about debt and money
We also want to profile spoken word artists who write on similar subjects to our campaigns so we can share artistically inspiring info that compliments our technical information.
Here is a poet called Spoken Wisper on the UK arms fair DSEI a place which we have dedicated many campaigns and days of action:
Rhyming Guide to the Arms Fair | by Potent Whisper
DSEI – one of the world’s largest arms fairs – returns to London in September 2023
Get ready to join in the resistance to DSEI 2023.
Every two years, the global arms trade comes to London. DSEI, one of the world’s largest arms fairs, returns to London’s Docklands this September.
This is where those who profit from war, repression, and injustice do business. This is where we can stop them.
Read More about our current campaigns
SPEAK SPEAKERS
We also have in our SPEAK speakers network people who can combine spoken word and campaign talks on behalf of SPEAK.
You can consider booking a SPEAK speaker to come to your event and area here is a link
LouDSpekA
LouDSpekA is a long-term SPEAKie and can be booked as a performer or SPEAK speaker. Here is a link to her latest lyric video Reborn To Rewild
Music Events
We are an active part of the conscious club and festival scene.
We have hosted club nights music events and jam sessions since 2000 and tents at music festivals our first tent at Glastonbury Green Futures Field in 2002.
To read about what we have done in the past read our Music Events Archive (LINK)
To read about what we are doing today and upcoming events click here.(LINK)
To read about future aspirations click here (LINK)
Arts Network and Arts Petal
We have various WhatsApp and Facebook groups of artists networked to encourage and support each other and skill share. If you are interested in any of these do get in touch admin@speak.org.uk
Music and Arts Festivals Archive
In the past, we have taken the SPEAK tent, campaign stall, or hosted stages at the following festivals across the UK and wider European arts/music festivals. We have also been a partner with the Break The Code debt campaign and Break the Code collective hosting stages at the following festivals. We ran a festival of our own in 2008 (SPEAK Big Dress festival in Sheffield) and in 2015 SPEAK peace festival on the outskirts of London:
Glastonbury 2002- tent with campaign stall in green futures fields.
Glastonbury 2003 with campaigns stall green futures fields.
Flavo Festival Holland 2004- ran some workshops at a festival with SPEAK Holland.
2005 Big Dress Tent went to G8 Make Poverty History Event in Edinburgh.
Slot Arts Festival Poland 2006 hosted some campaign workshops in a tea tent run by SPEAK Germany.
Sunrise at Big Chill 2008- hosted a stage.
Sunrise 2009 hosts the little big dress yurt tent.
Waveform 2009 The Big Dress went to a music festival.
Buddhafield 2010- hosted the Little Big Dress.
2011- Music Speak tipi tent to waveform festival and a small team.
2012 music SPEAKS team to Waveform festival.
2012 mini big dress tipi to Greenbelt festival.
2015 SPEAK Peace Festival.
2016 Break the Code Debt campaign music launch as part of SPEAK Run on the Banks weekender.
Partnering with Break The Code Debt Justice Campaign .
2017 Shindig Festival and Green Gathering and Boomtown with Resistance Exhibition – an exhibition showing the history of protest in the UK with Phoenix rainbow.
2018 Shindig Festival, Boomtown, and Sunrise Festival.
2019Shindig Festival, Boomtown and Sunrise Festival.
2020 online with Spirit Space and Eden people with USA and Virtual Burning Man collaboration.
2021 Equinox with Break the Code campaign stall & performance.
2022 Shindig Festival, Boomtown, and Equinox Festival with Break The Code campaign stall & performance.