Skin Deep Communes on Faith

🤲🌀🌙 Commune with us this summer in London as we explore a simple but loaded question: what does it mean to have faith right now? 🤲🌀🌙

Many of us are moving through a moment shaped by multiple crises of faith - in our political and economic systems, in media and institutions, in the social contract, and even within our own movements. In the context of genocide and war, that loss of faith can extend to the idea that a different kind of future is possible at all.

So what is to be done?

Across this curated weekend, we’ll bring together artists, organisers, writers and communities to think through these questions together. Expect participatory sessions, performances, readings, and conversations that open things up and invite you in.

Between sessions, you’ll have the opportunity to explore the marketplace, dive into the Skin Deep Library, connect with each other and fuel up on teas, coffees and snacks. There will also be food available for purchase at a reduced cost.

SATURDAY 4th JULY TIMINGS | 1:30-9:00PM

The TL;DR version...

1:30PM - DOORS OPEN

2:00 - 2:30PM - READING: Hajar Press Authors (Main Hall)

3:00 - 4:30PM - VASHTI MEDIA: Deviance as Divine (Main Hall)

4:00 - 5:30PM - WORKSHOP: Community Poetry in Action with Sufiyan Sheeraz (The Library)

5:00 - 6:00PM - IN CONVERSATION: Dr Aditi x Dr Aleema Gray (Main Hall)

6:00 - 7:00PM - DINNER SERVICE

7:00 - 8:30PM - PERFORMANCE: 'Without A Net', with Alice Mary Jelaska, Sarathy Korwar and Miryam Solomon, Curated by George Nelson (Main Hall)

9:00PM - EVENT ENDS

Complimentary fruit, snacks, tea, coffee, juice will be served throughout the day. We also have AC to keep you cool as cucumbers!

The full-fat details version...

1:30PM - DOORS OPEN: Welcome to the village!

All Day - LIBRARY: Settle in and flip through our back prints, readings by collaborators & general sources of inspiration that are part of our archive

.            - APRICUS BEAD CRAFTING: Come make a keychain, have a chat, and slow down. A little creative pause for anyone who joins us.

.            - TAROT TABLE, CONFESSION BOX, CRAFTY CORNERS: Whether you want to sit to down and read someone's tarot, make a confession, or have a creative moment to yourself, we've got you!

1:30-6:45PM - MARKETPLACE: Meet local publishers, writers and indie publications that are part of the wider ecology of Skin Deep including Hajar Press, sweet-thang zine, OOMK zine, Khidr, CAMP, Translator Mag, Anamot Press, Slow and Dirty Press, Free Brize Norton and MSJI.

2:00 - 2:30PM - READING: Hajar Press Authors (Main Hall)

• Join us as we start the day with readings from Jamal Mehmood and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan.

3:00 - 4:30PM - VASHTI MEDIA: Deviance as Divine (Main Hall)

• Working with collaborating facilitators, Vashti will host an activation engaging participants in a collective exploration of deviance as divine. Through collective mapping the activation will result in the live collection of the groups’ conversations and reflections into a zine that will be distributed at the end of the day, and onwards to zine distributors.
  
  The activation stems from ideas of in-between-ness in Judaism - in which it can be understood that it is between poles/binary points that creation, holiness, insurgency is borne. From here we embark on a mapping of what it really means, feels like, and takes, to inhabit deviance in our world, and what role doing so plays in our lives and in liberation work.
  
  Through prompts, sound objects and archival materials, we’ll explore ideas around traitorism (e.g. around class), subversiveness (e.g. through gender), risk (e.g. within organising), hope, and trust.
  
  Facilitation methods follow from conjunctural analysis and take inspiration from the formulation of the Talmud (the eventual written repository of thousands of years of oral law in Judaism), which is printed in a spiralling of commentary and self-commentary on each page. The in-the-moment production and distribution of a zine recalls/embodies the role that DIY media distribution plays in communicating radical ideas and aspirations.

4:00 - 5:30PM - WORKSHOP: Community Poetry in Action with Sufiyan Sheeraz (The Library) - max. 20 participants, sign up at ticketing table first come first served

• Understanding Sufism as the expression of radical love, oneness and creative spirituality, this workshop will explore what faith looks like in times such as these, and how we might use faith to guide ourselves towards action, resistance and solidarity.

5:00 - 6:00PM - IN CONVERSATION: Dr Aditi x Dr Aleema Gray (Main Hall)

• A conversation between two multidisciplinary artists and thinkers.
  
  Dr Aleema Gray is an award-winning Jamaican-born curator, researcher and public historian based in London. She was awarded the Yesu Persaud Scholarship for her PhD entitled "Bun Babylon: A Community-engaged History of Rastafari in Britain". Aleema’s practice is driven by a concern for more historically contingent ways of understanding the present, especially in relation to notions of belonging, memory, and contested heritage. She was the Lead Curator for Beyond the Bassline: 500 years of Black British Music at the British Library and the founder of HOUSE OF DREAD, an anti-disciplinary heritage studio.
  
  Dr Aditi is a thinker and creator, writer and dreamer. Having worked at the intersections of law, culture and politics in various capacities, Aditi is motivated by a politics of refusal, living in rupture as rapture; turning away from hegemonic worlds of oppression and tuning into something different, beyond the world we live in and moving to the rhythms of an elsewhere. It is this compulsion which guides her pedagogy in the education work she does. Riffing off education for liberation, she creates spaces of (un)learning as a site of radical praxis, using tools of music, film and visual culture, to unpack the ways in which ideologies of oppression and liberation travel through cultural production. She teaches her own course, Rhythm, Race, Revolution as well as courses at different London-based academic institutions.

6:00 - 7:00PM - DINNER SERVICE 

• Vegan and halal dinner meals will be available for all at reduced cost.

7:00 - 8:30PM - PERFORMANCE: Without A Net (Main Hall)

• Curated by George Nelson of Moment's Notice, a trio of musicians - Alice Mary Jelaska, Sarathy Korwar and Miryam Solomon - meet in improvisation for the first time. The ultimate artistic expression of a leap of faith.

9:00PM - EVENT ENDS

SUNDAY 5th JULY TIMINGS | 1:30-9:00PM

The TL;DR version...

1:30PM - DOORS OPEN

2:00 - 2:30PM - READING: Hajar Press Authors (Main Hall)

3:00 - 4:30PM - THE NEJMA COLLECTIVE: Faith, mercy and prisons (Main Hall)

4:00 - 5:00PM - WORKSHOP: Tea Ritual with Hannah Yu-Pearson 慧 HUI (The Library)

5:00 - 6:00PM - IN CONVERSATION: Jordan Taylor Jones x DK Renton (Main Hall)

6:00 - 7:00PM - DINNER SERVICE

7:00 - 8:30PM - PARTICIPATORY: The Long Table and The Last Dessert (Main Hall)

9:00PM - EVENT ENDS

Complimentary fruit, snacks, tea, coffee, juice will be served throughout the day. We also have AC to keep you cool as cucumbers!

The full-fat details version...

1:30PM - DOORS OPEN: Welcome to the village!

All Day - LIBRARY: Settle in and flip through our back prints, readings by collaborators & general sources of inspiration that are part of our archive

. - APRICUS BEAD CRAFTING: Come make a keychain, have a chat, and slow down. A little creative pause for anyone who joins us.

. - TAROT TABLE, CONFESSION BOX, CRAFTY CORNERS: Whether you want to sit to down and read someone's tarot, make a confession, or have a creative moment to yourself, we've got you!

1:30-6:45PM - MARKETPLACE: Meet local publishers, writers and indie publications that are part of the wider ecology of Skin Deep including Haymarket Books, sweet-thang zine, OOMK zine, Khidr, CAMP, Translator Mag, Anamot Press, Slow and Dirty Press, Free Brize Norton and MSJI.

2:00 - 2:30PM - READING: Hajar Press Authors (Main Hall)

• Join us as we start the day with a reading from Waithera Sebatindira.

3:00 - 4:30PM - THE NEJMA COLLECTIVE: Faith, mercy and prisons (Main Hall)

• At Nejma we know the criminal system is not merciful nor just. In the UK, 18% of the prison population are Muslims while only making up 6% of the general population. Muslims on the inside are surveilled, targeted and attacked. Taking inspiration from Prophetic practices, Nejma offers resources, grants and supports to our brothers and sisters on the inside - including people of all faiths and none. In this workshop, learn more about what we do and be part of the work to challenge the prison industrial complex which relies on dismantling communities and breaking spirits. Here you’ll get the chance to write letters to those on the inside and counter the isolation that the prison system banks on.

4:00 - 5:30PM - WORKSHOP: Tea Ritual with Hannah Yu-Pearson 慧 HUI (The Library) - max. 20 participants, sign up at ticketing table first come first served

• Elemental Connection is an opportunity to sink into a meditative tea space where, through slow sips of tea, we will journey through the elements that are alive within our bodies. This will be a quiet, resourceful space to deepen into presence and receptivity, both in and beyond yourself. It will give pause to absorb the conversations, connections and stimulation from the wider event space prior, and ready you for what comes after.

5:00 - 6:00PM - IN CONVERSATION: Jordan Taylor Jones x DK Renton (Main Hall)

• A conversation delving into revolutionary forgiveness and much more.
  
  

  David Renton is a barrister, historian and author. His latest book, 'Revolutionary Forgiveness', was published by Haymarket Books in May. His work has appeared in The London Review of Books, The Guardian, Jacobin, Spectre, and Tempest. Renton is a member of rs21. His books include The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right and Fascism: History and Theory. He is based in London.

  Jordan Taylor Jones (he/him) serves as the Associate Pastor at Metro Hope Church in New York City. His ministry is shaped by abolition, liberation, and revolutionary love. He is a writer and faith-based community organizer whose work flows from a call to facilitate spaces of healing, resistance, and hope. He earned his Masters in Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, where he researched the role of contemplative practice in building Beloved Fugitive Communities. An Atlanta-native, Jordan is a student of the Black freedom movement as well as Latin American Liberation Theology, which he learned from organic movement leaders in rural Colombia. Most importantly, he is a proud brother, friend, and son.

6:00 - 7:00PM - DINNER SERVICE

• Vegan and halal dinner meals will be available for all at reduced cost.

7:00 - 8:30PM - PARTICIPATORY: The Long Table and The Last Dessert, with Teigist Taye and Hannah Yu-Pearson (Main Hall)

• After two glorious days of communing, we'll have a moment to digest the various threads that will have emerged. A moment of reflection, provocation, and thinking on how to carry our faith (whatever it looks like) forward. Ritualising the act of eating together takes food into the realm of reverence, intimacy and deep, collective nourishment. In this final moment of the Faith weekend, we will take time to digest and absorb the richness of all we have been exposed to. The sharing and feeding on sweet treats will symbolise our savouring of the places where faith and divinity lie.

9:00PM - EVENT ENDS

To learn more about why Skin Deep is doing a whole season on Faith, come and explore the editorial on our website!

We don’t want money to be a barrier to anyone attending our events, so please email us at team@skindeepmag.com to request a fully subsidised ticket.

Cancellation Policy  All ticket sales are final and non-refundable. If you’re unable to attend, we encourage you to pass your ticket on to someone else.

Children under 12 may attend the festival free of charge and are the responsibility of their parent or guardian; however, all children must be registered in advance with their name for entry.

Concession  Our concession ticket offers reduced-price access for those who may need it - such as students, over 60s, unemployed or disabled individuals and their carers. There are limited concession tickets available. We trust our community to select this option in good faith, without the need for formal proof.

Group Bookings  For groups of 5 of more people, please email us at team@skindeepmag.com

About Skin Deep: Skin Deep makes culture in service of racial justice and liberation. Working across editorial and events, we produce and facilitate creative work that informs, motivates and nourishes people in the fight against racial capitalism. We operate at the intersection of culture and politics, bringing together artists and organisers, writers and community leaders, performers and activists. We work collectively to weave an alternative cultural ecosystem that is able to generate the kinds of stories, images and sounds that can show us the way to liberation, and bring us closer to it. We are a non-profit community interest company and funding is a constant struggle, particularly for some of the issues we believe are the most urgently deserving of our care and attention – like Palestinian liberation. If you believe in the importance of stories like the ones in this season, please support our organisation: become a member, or make a one-off donation.