About the course
In this four-week workshop, we’ll explore the ways visual art can challenge and introduce alterity into what we write about, as well as how we write.
Looking closely at paintings and photographs by artists such as Helen Frankenthaler, Salman Toor, Joan Mitchell, Ithell Colquhoun, Rachel Jones, Claude Cahun, Francesca Woodman and Pixy Liao, we’ll consider how questions of surface, abstraction, gesture and composition might find new lives in language.
We’ll consider questions such as:
- How can a brushstroke be reflected in a line?
- What happens when syntax behaves like colour?
- How can the frame of a photograph reshape a line-break?
- What happens when language prioritises texture over narrative?
Through close reading/viewing and free writing, we’ll experiment with and write our own poems that borrow from the logic of painting and photography.
Together, we’ll embrace the page as a visual field in its own right. We’ll explore how ways of seeing might become ways of writing, and how we can develop new approaches to image, form and poetic attention.
About the tutor
Chloe Elliott is a winner of the New Poets Prize as well as the Creative Future Writers’ Award. Her writing features in Aesthetica, Corridor8, bath magg, Basket Magazine, Bedtime Stories for the End of the World, berlin lit, Magma, The North, Propel, and Strix, amongst others. Her pamphlet Encyclopaedia is published with Smith|Doorstop, and her micro chapbook DREAMSIMULATION is with Carmen et Error.
Who is it for?
All underrepresented writers—those who face barriers to opportunities due to mental health issues, physical health/disability, sensory impairment, learning disabilities, neurodivergence, substance misuse, survivors, carers, working class backgrounds, and those from the LGBTQIA+ community, Black, Asian, traveller, mixed heritage or other global majority backgrounds.
This course is best suited to writers of any level, beginner to advanced.
Dates & Time:
Mondays: 23 November – 14 December
6-8 pm
This course takes place online via Zoom. Links will be sent seven days prior to the first session, and again the day of the first session.
Access:
You can see our full access commitments here.
- When you book, you can let us know about any access needs you have and we will do our best to accommodate them.
- Workshops are not usually recorded. A recording can be requested by someone if they have a specific access need. All participants will be told in advance if this is the case.
- Presentations and course handouts will be provided.
- Our full workshop guidelines are here.
Cost:
£55 / £27.50 concessions
In order to make our resources stretch further, we have to subsidise some workshops with nominal fees well below most online courses. The more who book at full price, the more we’ll be able to offer.
Concessionary places are available for those on benefits, pensioners, unemployed/underemployed or on low wages. We do not ask for proof that you qualify.
If concessionary spaces are unavailable and/or the course is fully booked, we can add you to the waiting list if you e-mail info@creativefuture.org.uk.
Our workshops are very popular and we want to make sure everyone has a chance to take part. We limit registration to one course per person in each round of workshops opening in January, April and September. Thanks for your understanding.
Other workshops
We are offering as many workshops and as many places as our resources allow—they are heavily subsidised by our limited funding.
You might also want to have a look at other workshops on offer elsewhere.
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