Writing Our Way Home

Free Word’s third season asked how our fundamental right to shelter, belonging and safety could be achieved in a world where home is insecure, fragile and on the brink of collapse.

A major new installation by interdisciplinary design collective RESOLVE showcased alternative voices and texts and explored the ways ‘home’ can be written and erased, and poet Amina Jama transformed Free Word’s cafe space into a 1990s Somali living room, paying homage to black Britishness, migration, and the creativity that arises from displacement.

Through live performances, debates, gig nights, poetry readings, discussions and interactive workshops the season addressed the global precariousness of home with Lowkey, Ed Daffarn, Faiza Shaheen, CLASS, London Renters Union, English PEN; displacement through gentrification, migration and exile with Reporters Without Borders, Winsome Pinnock, Inua Ellams, Roger Robinson, Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, Raymond Antrobus, Bridget Minamore, Theresa Lola; and the victories that offer us hope that we can create home in new ways with Shelter, UCL Urban Lab, Touching Bass, The Literary Consultancy, Lars Saabye Christensen, Soofiya and many more extraordinary writers, artists and activists.

Check out the archive of the programme below.

This season is generously supported by Fritt Ord, Arts Council England, The Norwegian Embassy and The Hollick Family Foundation.