Origins Untold

🌸 resting: an evening of poetry 🌸

OU is excited to present an evening of poetry readings and a workshop led by on the notion of rest.

More about the line-up and workshop to be announced… but we’re so excited to be putting this event on, with the support of , whose brilliant community work has provided an amazing space for poets, writers, groups and initiatives of many kinds! 💜

🌸🌸🌸OPEN CALL: Are you a Black poet? Do you want to contribute a reading or performance? DM us! 🌸🌸🌸

📍The Folkestone Bookshop

🌸Wednesday 25 October 2023, 19:00

+ drop-in workshop 17:00-18:30

🌾 re-setting: schedule 🌾

🌾 re-setting: mini-residencies
📍Brewery Tap UCA Project Space | 2-15 October 2023, times vary

Black, African and Caribbean-heritage artists working and living in Folkestone ‘re-set’ their practice with studio space in the Creative Quarter

🌾 re-setting: mini-residencies closing party
📍Brewery Tap UCA Project Space | Sunday 15 October 2023, 16:00

Celebrate two weeks of creativity at ‘re-setting: mini-residencies’ with food, drinks, dancing and a showcase of work developed during the residencies

🌾 Black Outside @ Folkestone Documentary Festival
📍The Green Room | Sunday 22 October 2023, 10:30

Jaha Browne’s ‘We Are Nature’ and two short films by Rhiana Bonterre, followed by a Q&A, a walk led by Francine Hajilou and a community meal. .mp4

🌾 resting: an evening of poetry
📍The Folkestone Bookshop | Wednesday 25 October 2023, 19:00

+ drop-in workshop 17:00-18:30

Join us for an informal poetry workshop then enjoy readings from local Black poets on the theme of rest, curated and hosted by Ray Carter - DM us if you’re interested in performing!

🌾re-setting: i.o.u.
📍Various locations in Folkestone | 1-31 October 2023, times vary

OU’s Josie Carter will record and transcribe conversations with local Black creatives and community members, asking ‘What do we owe each other?’ DM if you’re interested in contributing.

And finally… contact us if you want to get involved! We are always looking to connect with Black, African and Caribbean-heritage folks in Folkestone and would be delighted to hear from you if you have ideas for events, want to show your work, or just want to say hi… 🌾🌾🌾

🌾 OU presents: re-setting 🌾

Black History Month is (nearly) here! And we’re so excited to present our programme of events for this year.

‘re-setting’ offers an opportunity returning, reflecting, reconvening, recording, re-evaluating and resting, as we reassess our relationships as people of Black, African and Caribbean heritage to our place in the natural, urban and social environments of Folkestone and the world.

We hope you’ll join us for another year of creativity and celebrations, as well as - with a quieter and more introspective programme than usual - a chance to step back and think through OU’s place in our community, reconsidering who we are are and what we do.

Keep an eye out for more details… and thank-you as ever to our partners and for working with us 💚🖤

🌞🌞🌞 OU is BACK and ready for summer!

After a long hibernation, we are so excited to be back in action and bringing you another action-packed season of events…

…starting with our second annual celebration of Refugee Week in Folkestone! Once again, we’re so proud to be taking part in the world’s largest arts and culture festival celebrating the contributions, resilience and creativity of people seeking sanctuary - here in Folkestone and across the world.

Mark your calendars: 19 - 25 June! And stay tuned for announcements of our events very soon.

Expect some drawing, walking, running and dancing, with a glittering array of partners and contributors including and more…

🪨 presence: closing events 🪨

what a festival it’s been! three exhibitions in two towns, a walking workshop, a residency, two very different kinds of film screening, a community meal and so many illuminating collaborations, conversations and connections reflecting on the fact (even the miracle?) of our blackness on this island of Britain - in our communities, on the land and against a still-roiling backdrop of political turmoil and institutional racism. In celebration of our creativity and still-here-ness, we present two closing events to help send off the Origins Untold Festival in style…

🪨 presence: Artists Roundtable | Friday 28th October, 18:00 | The Folkestone Bookshop | 70-72 Tontine St, Folkestone CT20 1JP

Artists featured throughout ‘presence’, our Black History Month exploration of African and Caribbean embodiments in the landscape of South East Kent, will discuss their work: drawing out connections, unearthing histories and sharing their experiences living and working as artists in Folkestone. Hosted by Josie Carter , featuring Ray Carter , Claudius Fanusie , Rubiane Maia , Rhiana Bonterre .mp4 and more... at

🪨 presence: Closing Party | Friday 28th October, 20:00 | Stables Gallery | 35-37 Tontine St, Folkestone, CT20 1JT

Gather with us to mark the close of this year's Origins Untold Festival with poems, speeches and a toast to our artists, contributors and supporters. There'll be a final opportunity to take in our exhibition at Stables Gallery while celebrating the contributions that local Black, African- and Caribbean-heritage creatives (as well as our wider community) have made to the festival, at the end of this Black History Month.

Come and join us - all welcome! Part of

📚 book recommendations 📚

we were so excited to be asked by to put together a list of book recommendations for Black History Month!

the OU gang chose a range of books, from YA to poetry, memoir to Black liberation classics… we hope you go to The Folkestone Bookshop to browse the collection, enjoy the beautifully curated space and find some new favourites.

and don’t miss the chance to join us at our Artists’ Roundtable this Friday at the bookshop to hear from the artists behind our three exhibitions this month… part of

📚

👉🏾 Zami: A New Spelling of My Name | Audre Lorde
👉🏽 Bitter | Akwaeke Emezi
👉🏿 My Darling from the Lions | Rachel Long
👉🏼 Quiet | Victoria Adukwei Bulley
👉🏾 Biracial Britain: A Different Way of Looking At Race | Remi Adekoya
👉🏿 Afropean: Notes from Black Europe | Johnny Pitts
👉🏽 What is Black Art | Alice Correia
👉🏾 Black By Design: A Two-Tone Memoir | Pauline Black
👉🏿 Unearthed: On Race and Roots, and How The Soil Taught Me I Belong | Claire Ratinon
👉🏾 Freedom is a Constant Struggle | Angela Y Davis

keep an eye on our stories to hear why we chose each book! and thank you to for working with us! 💜

🪨 presence: announcement! 🪨

we are delighted to add another event to our programme: in celebration of the last day of Rhiana Bonterre’s .mp4 Origins Untold Festival Residency, we invite you to a screening of three of her short films examining Caribbean identities, histories and embodiments. Join us for an intimate evening including a conversation with the artist.

🪨 Monday 24th October, 18.30-19.30 | Brewery Tap UCA Project Space | 53 Tontine St, Folkestone, CT20 1JR

🪨 presence: now open in Hythe! 🪨

a lightning-quick install in Hythe yesterday! Despite some technical problems (some of our cloth prints didn’t come… and we can’t use the walls of the Town Hall!) teamwork and ingenuity prevailed! We put up a gorgeous exhibition of ’s A Sense of Place: Caribbean Women in the Landscape and a selection of Claudius Fanusie’s plein-air sketches, paintings and mixed media works. We had a lovely opening yesterday evening - serenaded with an afrodiasporic medley on the guitar by Kevin Richards .

Huge thanks to and Anita and Claudius, to the delightful Dr Christopher of and, of course, to the mastermind herself, !

And finally, come and see the show! Thursday-Sunday at Hythe Town Hall until 23rd October… 🪨🪨🪨

installation day three: done!

measuring, cutting, sticking, hammering, nailing, fixing, adjusting, standing back and looking, left-a-bit-right-a-bit-ing in preparation for our opening on Saturday, today we put the finishing touches on our second ‘presence’ exhibition, this time at the Sassoon Gallery.

come and join us this afternoon as we celebrate the opening of this space and the launch of our programme for this October! 🥂

🪨 presence: Opening Event and Programme Launch
Saturday 8th October, 14:00 - 16:00 | Sassoon Gallery, Folkestone Library | 2 Grace Hill, Folkestone, CT20 1DD

Featuring Aida Silvestri, Rubiane Maia , Holly D. M. Oluwo and Isha McKenzie Mavinga for Origins Untold Festival 2022.

installation day one: done!

we had many friendly drop-ins, deep talks, curatorial surprises and lots and lots of bits of double-sided tape! some finishing touches to do tomorrow, but I think it’s safe to consider the first of our exhibitions for Origins Untold festival open! opening times and details below, and we’ll be closing the festival with a little celebration here on 28th October as part of Last Fridays.

🪨 presence 🪨 plein-air drawing, walking rituals, divination and earth consciousness: what does it mean for Black, African and Caribbean artists to make work on the land and in the landscape of South-East England? ‘presence’ accompanies Black artists into the rural and urban wild across three locations in Folkestone and Hythe

🪨 Stables Gallery | 35-37 Tontine St, Folkestone, CT20 1JT | Thursday 6th October - Saturday 29th October | opening hours: 11:00-16:00 Monday - Sunday

featuring work by Ray Carter , Josie Carter and Aida Silvestri commissioned for SALT + EARTH Festival 2022

🪨

🪨 presence: community events 🪨

we are delighted to have such amazing partners and collaborators in Folkestone and beyond! this October we are overjoyed to present the following interactive, collaborative and co-produced events:

🪨 Our Screen Heritage: Origins Untold Takeover Tour | Thursday 13th October, 18:00 - Late! | Meet at D:NA | 64 Tontine St, Folkestone CT20 1JP

Explore Folkestone’s q***r archive on a tour of the Our Screen Heritage exhibitions, Nature, Families, Pride.Protest.Parties., and Future Archive from a q***r-of-colour perspective. Community discussions, a potluck dinner, and a dance-party…✨🏳️‍⚧️✊🏾🏳️‍🌈✨

With and

🪨 chalk, grass, land: Walk + Workshop | Saturday 22nd October, 10:00 - 12:00 | Meet at The Valiant Sailor pub | New Dover Rd, Folkestone CT18 7JJ

Enquire into the possibilities for Black British embodiments against the sharp white background of the Kent Downs chalkland. Walk and workshop on Creteway Down led by Ray Carter continuing their project ‘chalk, grass, land’ commissioned for

🪨 Folkestone Documentary Festival: Community Meal |
Sunday 23rd October, 12:15 | Quarterhouse | Mill Bay, Folkestone, CT20 1JT

Folkestone Documentary Festival: REBEL DREAD + Panel | Sunday 23rd October, 14:00 | Quarterhouse | Mill Bay, Folkestone, CT20 1JT

Teaming up for the second year running, we are so excited to be partnering with Folkestone Documentary Festival to present two events:

a plant-based community feast from Dr Legumes 🌱

and a screening of REBEL DREAD, the story of Don Letts, a first-generation British-born Black filmmaker, DJ, musician and cultural commentator.

The film will be followed by a panel reflecting on music across cultures, documentary as a witness, and diversifying British-Caribbean-African identity narratives 🎥🇯🇲📀🇬🇧

***r ***rofcolour

🪨 presence: events 🪨

meet the artists, get a first look at the exhibitions and celebrate with us at our opening and closing events - including a very special artists roundtable conversation…

🪨 presence: Opening Event and Programme Launch
Saturday 8th October, 14:00 - 16:00 | Sassoon Gallery, Folkestone Library | 2 Grace Hill, Folkestone, CT20 1DD

Come and celebrate the opening of ‘presence’ and the launch of this year’s Origins Untold Festival programme!

🪨 presence: Hythe Exhibition Opening
Saturday 15th October, 18:00 - 20:00 | Hythe Town Hall | High Street, Hythe, CT21 5AJ

Mark the opening of Origins Untold’s second exhibition in Hythe with an opening celebration featuring a performance by Kevin Richards of legendary local band MAMPAMA

🪨 presence: Artists Roundtable
Friday 28th October, 18:00 | The Folkestone Bookshop | 70-72 Tontine St, Folkestone CT20 1JP

Artists featured throughout ‘presence’ will discuss their work: drawing out connections, unearthing histories and sharing experiences as African and Caribbean-heritage artists living and working in Folkestone. Hosted at the (soon-to-open!)

🪨 presence: Closing Event
Friday 28th October, 20:00 | Stables Gallery | 35-37 Tontine St, Folkestone, CT20 1JT

As the Origins Untold Festival draws to a close, gather with us to mark the end of Black History Month with poems, speeches and a toast!🥂

🪨 residency 🪨

OU is delighted to announce that filmmaker Rhiana Bonterre .mp4 will be Origins Untold Festival’s first ever Artist in Residence. Rhiana will be researching and developing new work over the course of the festival, based at Brewery Tap 18th - 24th October

🪨 exhibitions 🪨

plein-air drawing, walking rituals, divination and earth consciousness: what does it mean for Black, African and Caribbean artists to make work on the land and in the landscape of South-East England? Across three locations in Folkestone and Hythe, ‘presence’ accompanies Black artists into the rural and urban wild as they inhabit, respond to and theorise the outdoors across visual media.

🪨

Sassoon Gallery, Folkestone Library | 2 Grace Hill, Folkestone, CT20 1DD

Saturday 8th October - Sunday 30th October

opening hours: visit www.kent.gov.uk/libs

featuring work by Aida Silvestri, Rubiane Maia , Holly Oluwo , and Dr Isha McKenzie-Mavinga

🪨

Hythe Town Hall | High Street, Hythe, CT21 5AJ

Saturday 15th October - Sunday 23rd October

opening hours: 11:00-16:00, Thursday - Sunday

featuring work by Anita McKenzie and Claudius Fanusie

🪨

Stables Gallery | 35-37 Tontine St, Folkestone, CT20 1JT

Thursday 6th October - Saturday 29th October

opening hours: 11:00-16:00 Monday - Sunday.

featuring work by Ray Carter , Josie Carter and Aida Silvestri.

🐚 SALT + EARTH 🪨

OU is proud to be part of this year’s monumental SALT + EARTH Festival, taking place in Folkestone (and its surrounding downs, plains and wealds) next weekend, 23rd - 25th September.

We’ll explore black British embodiments against the sharp, white background of chalk and the bristling multiplicity of grass in Ray () and Josie Carter’s () project, ‘chalk, grass, land’.

Join us throughout the weekend as Josie and Ray show the results of a three-month-long enquiry into land, nation, race, bodies, and gender, starting with a preview on Friday 23rd at 8pm in the Brewery Tap garden , a talk on Saturday 24th at 11am at and a walk on the chalk on Sunday 25th at 11am…

Further details and full programme may be found on and ’s pages, and on their website. Link in bio, too. 🌾

🏳️‍🌈✨🏳️‍⚧️OU at PRIDE! 🏳️‍⚧️✨🏳️‍🌈

From 2pm on Saturday 23rd July, we are so excited to be joining on the Leas for a celebration of Folkestone’s fabulous LGBTQ+ community!

We’ll be making a group artwork with LGBTQ+ people of colour reflecting our senses of being and belonging through marks, shapes and colours, led by the wonderful

Come hang out and chat with us at our stall! We would love to see you there…

✌🏿🏳️‍🌈💖🍒🥝👋🏽🥥🥭💜✨🏳️‍⚧️✊🏾

📸 we’re open! 📷

Featuring Aida Silvestri, Josephine Carter, Rania Saadaleh, Art Refuge and many, many more… at Brewery Tap UCA Project Space Friday 24th - Sunday 26th June. Come and see us!

Installation shots featuring new work and a little help from our friends…

🗺The Community Table🗺

Saturday 25th June, 12:00

An exciting and out-of-the-ordinary offering for our celebrations in Folkestone. You are invited to join us around The Community Table this Saturday, on the beach next to the Harbour Arm.

Local residents, artists and visitors are invited to a collaborative space for thinking about our coastal town as a home and place of welcome for refugees. Using hydrographical maps, coastal shingle and other materials, we will gather around The Community Table, a long table positioned on the beach overlooking the Channel for art-making and discussion around migration, togetherness and healing.

It’s an opportunity for artist-activism, creativity, fun and connection, while also acknowledging what past and present migration stories mean to this land that we live on, and this coast in particular - on the edge of England, in view of Calais, if we’re lucky.

We have this massive, billowing hydro graphical map of the Channel to play with, charting crossings and mapping routes. We’ll do this while looking out over the real stretch of water separating us from continental Europe that thousands of people cross each year. Come and join us!

Presented with the amazing charity Art Refuge which facilitates The Community Table with artists, art therapists and displaced people in London, Bristol, Calais, Paris, Folkestone and further afield.

*

🌊 here we go! 🌊

We are making final preparations for the start of Refugee Week celebrations here in Folkestone! officially runs 20th-26th June, but we will be marking the occasion starting from 24th-26th, with an exciting programme…

🌊 The Community Table

Folkestone Beach (nr. Casa Anacaona, opposite the Harbour Arm) | Saturday 25th June, 12:00

Local residents, artists and visitors are invited to gather around The Community Table on the beach overlooking the Channel for art-making and discussion around migration, togetherness and healing.

Presented with Art Refuge


🌊 Party at Payers Park

Payers Park, near Quarterhouse | Saturday 25th June, 16:00

Come and party in Payers Park! We'll be getting together to celebrate our diverse community, particularly displaced people and those who work with them to make our town feel like home. There will be food and drink from local vendors including Dr Legumes and The Nook, and a cross-cultural bill of live music, entertainment and DJs, including Mampama and DJ Local Foreigner

🌊 Exhibition: MOVEMENT

Brewery Tap UCA Project Space | Friday 24th - Sunday 26th June

Highlighting the lived experiences of people who have been displaced, MOVEMENT will showcase the work of artists across media from Folkestone and further afield. Documentation of artist-activist efforts to provide opportunities for creativity, play and connection for people experiencing displacement will be shown in balance with the artwork of refugee artists as they tell their own stories.

🌊 Little Amal: The Walk

Sunny Sands | Monday 27th June, 18:00

We are delighted to welcome Little Amal, the 3.5 metre puppet representing a young Syrian refugee child, back to our town. Moments away from where she first arrived on our shores, Amal will look out to sea and think about refugee children across the world like her. Presented with Folkestone Fringe

Refugee Week in Folkestone is presented by Origins Untold with the support of Counterpoints Arts, Creative Folkestone, Folkestone Fringe, Counterpoints Arts and Kent Community Foundation

🌿where souls meet 🌿

A complete delight to gather as a community with everyone who came from near and far to pay tribute to Arikę. We celebrated with ritual, poetry and song, unveiling a majestic memorial bench which sits in pride of place at the bottom of the Zig-Zag Path in the Lower Leas Park in Folkestone.

Thank you especially to master of ceremonies Anita McKenzie () master drummer and microphone adjuster extraordinaire, Kevin Richards () bench mastermind Peter Philips, fundraising genius Joy Mandel, and Leah Thorn.

🦋A Sense of Place: Caribbean Women In The Landscape 🦋

We are delighted to support this gorgeous exhibition from Anita J McKenzie as she explores what it might mean for Caribbean women to feel at home in Folkestone.

Preview | Tuesday 21st June, 17:00-19:00 | Urban Room Folkestone

Open Wednesday 22nd June - Sunday 24th July | Wednesday-Sunday, 11:00-15:00 | Urban Room Folkestone

We’d love to see you there, and we’ll be sharing more details of the programme that Anita has put together to accompany the exhibition. Opportunities to meet the photographer, share Windrush stories… and more!

some fun from yesterday… 🇬🇧🥥🌴

we asked street-partiers to draw flags for the future… and we got future UK flags, a future commonwealth flag, a flag for a future without countries…

and beautiful pictures of a mango, a coconut, a beach scene with turtles and a queen!

Thank you and his street for such a lovely welcome, to for the Caribbean flags and to everyone who joined in with the fun!

We loved taking a moment together during this weekend of celebration to look again at the national, colonial and imperial histories that divide and unite us.

🦋🦋🦋 Join us as we bring Refugee Week celebrations to our town - a historic site of arrival and departure for visitors, settlers, refugees and migrants of many kinds over the centuries. In honour of this history and our present-day refugee community, we invite you to join us at...

🌊 The Community Table | Refugee Week 2022

Saturday 25th June 2022, 12:00 | Folkestone Beach (nr. Casa Anacaoña)

Local residents, artists and visitors are invited to a collaborative space for thinking about our coastal town as a home and place of welcome for refugees. Using hydrographical maps, coastal clay, shingle and other materials, we will gather around The Community Table, a long table positioned on the beach overlooking the Channel for art-making and discussion around migration, togetherness and healing.

🎉 Party at Payers Park | Refugee Week 2022

Saturday 25th June 2022, 16:00 | Payers Park

Join Origins Untold for a party in Payers Park celebrating our diverse community, particularly displaced people and those who work with them to make our town feel like home. We are extending a special invitation to residents, staff, volunteers and NGOs working at Napier Barracks to sing, dance and feast together with the communities of Folkestone. There will be food and drink from local vendors including our friends Dr Legumes and a cross-cultural bill of live music, entertainment and DJs, including the fabulous Mampama and DJ Local Foreigner.

Refugee Week is presented with the support of Creative Folkestone , Folkestone Fringe , Counterpoints Arts , Art Refuge , and funding from Kent Community Foundation, as well as support from many other local people and organisations. We’re really grateful for all the support and enthusiasm of our partners, and very excited!

More events and further details to be announced - keep your eye out! 👀

ready? 🌱🌊🍃🦋🌾

We are delighted to be welcoming Little Amal back to Folkestone, in collaboration with the wonderful ! To round off our Refugee Week festivities (more on that later…) we are delighted to be help celebrate Amal’s return to our town with a twilight gathering on Folkestone beach.

A powerful symbol of hope, unity and possibility, we can’t wait to have Amal with us on 27th June, inspiring us as a community to continue making our town a place of welcome for refugees.

Follow Amal's journey at and keep an eye on for updates (as well as here!)

OU NEEDS YOU! 👉🏿👉🏾👉🏽👉🏼

2021 was a busy, exciting year for Origins Untold! Now we need your help as we evaluate and review our programme in order to be even bigger, better and bolder in 2022.

We have some serious challenges to meet in Folkestone, Hythe and beyond as we continue to grow and connect a local black and African-heritage community, represent and celebrate black artists and do our part of the work of dismantling racism.

Help us by filling in a short questionnaire about OU’s 2021 programme. Link in bio or here… https://forms.gle/3237hq34x1BMFcRy7

✨

🎭 MOTHERS, DAUGHTERS, STORIES 🎭

We’re delighted to be partnering with as they bring ‘s beautiful production HERE’S WHAT SHE SAID TO ME to Quarterhouse this Wednesday!

👉🏿 👉🏾👉🏽Wednesday 9th February, 19.30 | Here’s What She Said To Me + Post-show discussion with Origins Untold

👉🏽 Here’s What She Said To Me combines drama with music, poetry and movement to tell a moving story of daughters and mothers in the world of migrations and shifting identities, from one of the UK’s leading African theatre companies.

👉🏾 After the performance, there will be a panel of local African-heritage women reflecting on the performance, sharing how the play resonates and contrasts with their own experiences as Black mothers and daughters.

👉🏿👉🏾👉🏽 Saturday 12th February, 14.00 | What She Said - FREE Creative Workshop with Josie Carter, Ray Carter and Aida Silvestri

👉🏿 Exploring the themes of Here’s What She Said To Me using writing, drawing and storytelling techniques, this workshop will be an opportunity to examine inheritance, identity and family through personal and cultural histories. Expect playful doodles, spontaneous poems, instant family portraits and a conversation with Here’s What She Said To Me’s creator and director, Mojisola Elufowoju.

Tickets are available via the link in our bio… or through Creative Folkestone’s website.

TUESDAY 7th DECEMBER // 7PM

come and celebrate the complexities of black hair at our pop-up exhibition, Please Do Not Touch.

featuring new and beautiful works by Aida Silvestri and at the wonderful

join us for a private view with the artists at 7pm on Tuesday 7th December… exhibition open until 20th December 👩🏽‍🦱🧑🏾‍🦱👩🏿‍🦱

thanks as always to and Folkestone Town Council ✨

Senet

What are your thoughts on black men? Where do those beliefs come from?

Take our anonymous survey and let us know.

No right or wrong answers, just share your truth.

Results will be shared on 10th October as part of the Black History Month event.

http://bit.ly/BlackMenAre

Please share with your contacts far and wide.

Thank you
Senet Yohannes