Sunrose Arts Festival

Hello again!

We hope you’re keeping well and that 2023 has been fun, artsy and joyous for you!

As the festive season is upon us, we’re showcasing some of our favourite artists you saw at this years Sunrose Arts Festival, with visual art, poetry videos and musical performance clips!

Pop back each day to see the talent Kent has to offer! Also, send us over your artist recommendations for your local favourites to get a feature ⭐️

For now, to kick us off, here’s our director Alice’s work, which you can find in their book coming 2024!

So happy to have had such a beautiful handmade business with us ❤ thanks for sharing

Enjoying the creative vibe today and tomorrow!

The event is from 10am in Canterbury in Kent. In Dane John Gardens.

T O M O R R O W

Sunrose Arts Festival kicks off at 10am in Dane John Gardens, bringing you music performances, creative workshops, exhibitions, art markets, scavenger hunts and so much more!

I could not be more excited, we’re supporting over 50 artists and have so many things to get involved in!

See you tomorrow 😍☀️

Let's tell you about our Poetry Boat Tours!

This is an incredibly popular event at Sunrose where we are teaming up with the Canterbury Punting Company to send out two boat tours of poetry on the Sunday!

Here's a bit of info about our artists:

Francis-Xavier Mukiibi: is a poet and spoken word performer of Ugandan heritage from North London. He is an alumnus of the Barbican Young Poets programme, the Roundhouse Poetry Collective and the Obsidian Foundation retreat. He was a finalist of BBC Words First in 2020 and is a multi-UniSlam finalist as a performer and coach, winning the UniSlam Coach’s Slam in 2023.

Zara: Heresiarch of Hivemind and small bird enthusiast, Zara's work tackles the human condition through reflecting on the natural world and the similarities that are present - they are a regular on both the London and Margate poetry circuits, Zara's debut collection, 'Flight', was published in June by Selcouth Station

Fenellah: a 22 year old poet from Chester, and studied a Masters in Poetry and Poetics from the University of York. Growing up I always wrote little stories - "It was a dark and stormy night..." but it was my Catholic education and tumultuous love affairs that have truly sparked my poetic voice, with my first collection, BOXTREE, ready to introduce myself to the world!

Nathan Lunt: is a West Midlands poet, performer, educator and writing mentor, creating weird and wonderful pieces of poetry inspired by the best and worst life has to offer. His writing varies in style and theme from piece to piece - sometimes concerned with deeply personal or social issues, sometimes reflecting on simple observations or telling fantastical stories.

Dr. Pritha Kejriwal is an academic, poet, writer and editor, based in London. She earned her Doctorate in Comparative Literature from Birkbeck, University of London. Her thesis looked at the works of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda through the lens of mathematical ontology developed by the French philosopher Alain Badiou. She works as as Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, where she teaches an Undergraduate module titled, ´Key Thinkers in Media Theory’.

Book here: sunroseartsfestival.com/tickets

THREE DAYS TO GO 🎶 🎭

Get your tickets for our specialised workshops and evening events now before your archnemesis gets the last one!

4 Days To Go 😳😳😳 !!!

Get your tickets to the specialised day and evening events now on our website...

theatre

Sunrose is THIS WEEK!

Five days to go! Spot our posters and flyers in Margate!

We want to see your selfies with our posters, send them over with the tag !!

IT'S HERE!

The stage is set, and our Utterance Worldwide winners from January to June are READY TO GO!

Utterance Worldwide Grand Slam Final comes to us as the closing event of Sunrose Arts Festival 2023.

Utterance is a Canterbury favourite in the spoken word world, running since 2021 with incredibly talented spoken word artists every month, but there can only be ONE Utterance Grand Slam Champion for 2023!

This is the best of the best, cream of the crop, the hardcore spoken word LEGENDS of Canterbury! And it's down to YOU, our voters, to decide who your winner is!

Location: Fruitworks 1-2 Jewry Lane, Canterbury

Start time: 7:30pm

Tickets are £5 for general admission, £2 for virtual access! (booking this ticket means we will email you a zoom link to access the event). These are selling fast so be sure to grab one here: sunroseartsfestival.com/tickets

6 days to go 🙏🌞

Still time to sign up to our stage, which will also be open to jump up on the day too! , , and more, all welcome ❤ Drop a comment or a message if interested.

We are ONE WEEK AWAY from our headlining showcase, Rhapsody!

You think you know great spoken word? You have seen NOTHING YET!

If you’ve been a fan of Utterance, this is a MUST, with some of London’s most brilliant spoken word talent, a musical headliner AND a very magical surprise 🪄

Don’t believe us yet? Here’s a little bit about our headliners:

Jessica is published in journals including Agenda, Poetry Wales, The North, Rialto, Under the Radar, Birmingham Literary Review, Magma and various anthologies including Bloodaxe’s Staying Human. Author of three pamphlets and four collections, highly commended in the 2017 Forward Prize. Her second collection, Tigress, by Nine Arches Press in 2019 was shortlisted in the Ledbury Munthe prize.

Aayushi is a folk singer-songwriter who likes writing poems disguised as songs. Her music has appeared on platforms such as Spotify’s ‘Most Beautiful Songs in the World’ playlist and BBC West Midlands, and has over 7 million Spotify streams to date.

Sarah’s poems have appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, The Rialto, Magma and Butcher's Dog, billboards and the side of buses, and in anthologies including Best British Poetry, The Forward Book of Poetry and Staying Human (Bloodaxe). Awards include a Society of Authors’ Foundation Award and first prizes in the London Magazine poetry competition and many more!

Jennifer Wong earned an MA in creative writing at UEA and a creative writing PhD at Oxford Brookes University. Wong is author of 3 poetry collections including 回家 Letters Home (Nine Arches Press, 2020), which explored migration, language and womanhood.

Hunter recently co-founded The Big Q***r Poetry Show in partnership with Stonewall Housing, a LGBTQ+ homelessness charity of which she is a proud Ambassador for, first show raising over £7000 for the charity.

We also have our two joint winners from Utterance May here to perform their feature!

So what are you waiting for? Tickets are flying so grab yours now! sunroseartsfestival.com/tickets

Seven Days To Go 🌞✨

Eight Days Until Sunrose 🔆

Nine days to go!!

I know you fancy volunteering at Sunrose, drop us a message! You get:

- experience in event management for your CV
- one on one contact with us learning the tricks of the trade
- A goodie bag of art
- Free tickets to all weekend events (we are predominantly free sure but still)

Drop us a message saying I WANT TO VOLUNTEER!

We are TEN DAYS AWAY from Sunrose Arts Festival!

Our festival is FREE ENTRY, with ticketed evening events such as Rhapsody Headlining Showcase (Saturday), Utterance Grand Slam Final (Sunday), our five workshops from facilitators across the country, and our poetry on the punting tours!

Tickets are selling fast so be sure to grab them here! sunroseartsfestival.com/tickets

Happy (late) Make and Shake Monday, everybody ☀️

This week's prompt, as we draw closer to the festival, is The Future!

All entries of art are welcome, be it drawn, written, painted, baked, sewn or other. We will upload all entries sent to us next Monday and tag the account of the artist unless specified otherwise.

An astoundingly beautiful poem by Michael Isaacs in response to last week's Make and Shake Monday prompt Remember/Past titled 'The Strength of a Memory' © in honour of his mum who has always been there to support him.

The Final Battle is here. Cast your votes now by messaging us before Midnight this Saturday 🌠

Your slammers are Em Cosh, Fiona Quarterman and Michael Isaacs.

Good luck slammers.

The final showdown before the end. Message to cast your votes now before the stroke of Midnight this Saturday to reveal your final slammer for Sunrose 2023 Grand Slam 🌞

Each of the three slams will be individually uploaded, to see them altogether check out our Instagram ().

Happy Make and Shake Monday everybody 📷

This week's theme is a double whammy Remember/The Past.

You may create anything you want, be it written, painted, sculpted, baked, photographed. All entries will be posted to our socials and the artists will be tagged (unless requested otherwise).

Have a fabulous themed week 📺

Much love and wonder to the amazing of Elen Jones and Michael Isaacs who wrote and created such amazing pieces of art for last week's Make and Shake Monday prompt 💖

Looking forward to seeing what we get sent next 🌠!

5 Ways To Love Yourself this ❤

Float along the 🌊🛶 our poets perform and entertain you this Sunrose Festival between 2-6pm Saturday 22nd July 🔆 at Mooring Cafe in collaboration with Canterbury Punting Company

Happy Make and Shake Monday everybody 😊

This week's theme: love ❤

In all its forms, be it forbidden and star crossed to eternal and sweet. It is all up to you 🎨

The prompt can take any form, written, photographed or recorded and it could be a song, a poem, a painting, a short story or other.

As with every week all entries will be posted across our social media and the creator tagged (unless specified otherwise).

Have a great make and shake Monday we can't wait to see what you make ❤