Arts 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 did an Art exhibition in the Jubilee rooms 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 in Parliament this provided a unique talking point between Network members and their MPs. This is just one story of numerous 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 agenda too! A little bit more about each of these areas: ***************************************** Music SPEAK Associated Music Labels Music- Music SPEAKs In 2009 we launch 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 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 come back in the future…. We did however carry on with a wider campaign on debt money and banking justice carried in 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 side so in that way we are still supporting and partnering with work with similar ethos but 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 of seen released in music speaks in the past with that disclaimer here is our partners 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 fli hip hop/ DNB beats. This for activists to keep the spiritual energy up in the struggle. In the past we have had quite an international collaborative line up for music Saturday night of our network gatherings (from Jinadu Skinfiltr8or and Gerard the Monk) and while we doing things on line a bit more online we hoping to make some ways of keeping that vibe alive with recordings. ************************************************* Spoken Word As SPEAK spoken word was always going to be 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 a lot of liturgy or lout-ery ( like being loud lout in poetic liturgical form) from Dutch poet connected via SPEAK in Holland Skinfiltr8r ( aka Rik ZuZu) a regular at many of our international gatherings previous SPEAK events Grace Against the Machine By Skinfilt8r Easter 2020- A profound poignant time : Grace Against The Machine /// isolated EASTER churchsperiment https://youtu.be/sYRykboJPHE?t=163 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) https://youtu.be/hnvida2yZvE 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 our seeding change campaign (LINK). Partners Inspiration May Project Gardens – Hip Hop and Permacutlure https://youtu.be/fbgB1JOfq-o 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 https://vimeo.com/9133131 (better quality video) https://youtu.be/4uAgeQlFeso Spoken word MP3 petition For and Music SPEAKS CD We have 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 on going Journey. We did an MP3 petition on corporate accountability of large corporations. Read about it here (LINK) in our campaigns archive we asked everyone to record a spoken word message for corporations to be Heald 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 stopha. 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 on going debt campaign we have campaign where we are asking people to record a message about debt, money We are also wanting to profile spoken word artists that write on similar subject 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 that we have dedicated many campaigns and days of action to: Rhyming Guide to the Arms Fair | by Potent Whisper https://youtu.be/E8gOL_BpS4g 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 in our current campaigns (LINK) SPEAK SPEAKERS Link We also have in our SPEAK speakers network people that can combine spoken word and campaigns 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. Her is a link to her latest lyric video Reborn To Rewild https://youtu.be/9umn39vFPFs Music Events We are an active part of the conscious club and festival scene. We have hosted club nights and 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 groups and Facebook groups of sub groups of artnsts 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 festival across UK and wider European arts/music festivals. We have also been a partner with 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 filed Glastonbury 2003 tent with campaigns stall green futures field 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 campaigns workshop in a tea tent run by SPEAK Germany Sunrise at Big Chill 2008- hosted a stage Sunrise 2009 host the little big dress yurt tent Waveform 2009 The Big dress went to a music festival – Buddhafield 2010- hosted the little big dress at 2011- Music Speak tipi tent to waveform festival and 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 history of protest in UK with Phoenix rainbow 2018 Shindig Festival, Boomtown and Sunrise Festival, 2019Shindig Festival, Boomtown and Sunrise Festival 2020 on-line 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