EXHIBITION COMING SOON TO LONDON

14-16th September 2017

Social media, self expression and self identity is a growing problem for young people. Finding a way through the ‘selfie’ culture, fake Instagram lives and trying to establish a true identity, has never been harder for young people as it is today.

So we decided to start a project that would help young people explore who they were rather than just what they look like through writing poetry about each other and then creating images based on what they discovered about each other and themselves.

As we already have local school students who come in to our Agency on work experience every year, We decided to spend the week with them looking at self perception and identity.

For the last few years we’ve put the groups of students into pairs and asked them to interview and write a short paragraph about each other. Then, working with some experienced young poets, the students crafted poetry about each other. We then asked them to photograph each other based on what they had written. These are some of the results. The poems will be overlaid onto the images when we finally exhibit.

We’re having an exhibition at the Hospital Club in London this year in September 2017. This will take place in the middle of fashion week. Instead of a traditional cat walk, we will have a poetry reading at the private view opening and the following day, a round table debate and discussion with government ministers from health and education and professional bodies and charities concerned with young people’s mental health and wellbeing and what can be done to safe guard our future generation turning negative and destructive behaviours into and constructive attitudes that lead to positive transformation.