WOWsers: A Creative Explosion How To online workshops took place over five months. They offered an informal social space for the WOWsers to explore different art forms, test out ideas and explore their own interests facilitated by expert artists. Here's what we got up...

This workshop was led by Korantema Anyimadu, a London based cultural producer and curator who creates zines, talks about heritage and works with young people and local communities. Her exhibition exploring Black women, non-binary people, hair and heritage won a Making History Award from the Mayor of London and is currently featured in the Migration Museum. She is the creator of The Salon zine, a collaborative zine about Black hair. Her work has been featured in Vice, gal-dem and ITV news. Korantema is currently curating part of the Horniman Museum's upcoming exhibition Hair, Untold Stories

During the session we explored what our radical futures might be and created small one page folded zines containing our responses.

You can discover more about Korantema at her website.

For this session, Liverpool based Amina Atiq guided us through a series of writing exercises and conversations creating short poems in minutes. Read WOWser Billie-Jo's here.

Amina is Yemeni-scouse published poet, award-winning community activist and performance artist. A BBC Words First 2019 Finalist and Young Associate for Curious Minds, Poet in Residence for Queensland Poetry Festival 2020-21 and Metal Southend. She is currently writing her solo show, Broken Biscuits to explore her grandmother's 1970s Yemeni-British household. In 2020, she produced a short documentary, Unheard Voices, commissioned by DadaFest capturing the stories of Yemeni shopkeepers in Liverpool.

She is working on a new online and print project, Scouse Pilgrimage commissioned by Unity Theatre. Upcoming publications found at Sutton Manor, Speaking Volumes and Cordite Poetry Review.

Find out more about Amina here.

This workshop was facilitated by Miss Jacqui, an amazing spoken word artist, songwriter, and facilitator. They are someone who always tries to challenge societal perceptions, like what it actually means to be a black woman with a disability.

A wheelchair user herself, Miss Jacqui wants her poetry and music to help her listeners see the world differently, and inspire others to feel confident in being themselves. Miss Jacqui has worked with Halfmoon Young People's Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, National Youth Theatre and Roundhouse just to name a few. They have performed at various locations like the Paralympic Team Welcoming Ceremony, as well as the Opening Ceremony.

During the session we explored who and what we are. Miss Jacqui then used our words to create this track.

Find out more about Miss Jacqui at her website.

Greer Pester presided over this masterclass in stop motion animation. Using simple paper cut outs we created short films in responses to our current passions and concerns. Check out two of the films below.

1. Anxiety Feeling by Sarah L

2. Music by Taylor

Greer is a visual and social multidisciplinary artist. Her practice explores human states of connection and ecstatic experience with her patchwork of collage, painting, sculpture, performance and installation. Bordered by colours and shapes that can refer us to the infantile and feminine. Greer is currently taking up residency in Stroud as part of Site Festival with Stroud Valley Artspace for the week and preparing a collective show at my dad's big old beautiful house in Glasgow for Glasgow Open House Arts Festival at the end of September!

Our photography workshop focused on the art of self portraiture, and our facilitator Alejandra Carles-Tolra guided us through a step by step process exploring concept, shape, composition and lighting. There's some examples of photos the WOWsers took in the gallery below.

Alejandra Carles-Tolra is a Spanish visual artist and educator based in London. As an educator she works regularly with galleries, educational and nonprofit institutions designing resources and delivering participatory photography workshops. She has a strong commitment to using photography as a voice and tool of empowerment and collaborates regularly with communities from diverse backgrounds. Her work is part of the Arts Council Collection and it has been exhibited internationally, including Photo Miyota Japan, FotoFever Paris, Finnish Museum of Photography, Wuhan Art Museum and the Jerwood/ Photoworks Awards. For her artistic practice, Alejandra is conducting research around women in spirituality. She is also working with groups of young carers, adults from refugee backgrounds and elder adults at the risk of isolation in a variety of projects in which we use photography as a tool of communication and connection. Check out her work here.

Our comics workshop was led by Wallis Eates from LDComics. We focused on memories and how to bring them to life through creating comics.

Wallis Eates is a Devon based comic creator who has made contributions to the UK indie comic scene with her self-published autobiographical works as well as collaborative projects. Shortlisted for the Myriad Editions First Graphic Novel Award in 2014, she has since worked with community groups to share experiences in comic format, including ‘Me-We’, a collection of stories from amateur boxers, and 'Wings', with writer Dr Victoria Anderson and inmates from HMP Wandsworth. Wallis is also a committee member with LDComics (formerly Laydeez Do Comics), an all-woman lead comics-promoting platform that is for everyone. Wallis is currently working on 'Like an Orange', a long-form graphic narrative about the brain injury survivors she met through the charity, Headway. She also runs online creativity wellbeing sessions, ‘Draw to Explore’, and she is available for 1-1 tutoring and mentoring.

Find out more about Wallis on her website.

Emily Aboud led our final How To Workshop using creative writing, the construction of monologues and performance to explore how we might speak our truth and change the world.

Emily Aboud is a Trinidadian theatre director and artistic director of Lagahoo Productions. She was shortlisted for the JMK Award in 2021 and is a recipient of the Evening Standard Future Theatre Award. Her work primarily focuses on decolonisation, specifically from the queer lens. Her most recent credits include Pink Lemonade (Bush Theatre), The Fairytale Revolution (Theatre503) and SPLINTERED (Vault Festival), which won Show of the Week Award and was OFFIE-Nominated.

Find out more about Emily on her website.

WOWsers: A Creative Explosion is an exhibition supported by BBC Children In Need’s impact programme focused on children’s mental health, A Million & Me.

Thanks from everyone at WOW for making this project possible.