“Poetry 4 Grenfell” PROJECT so far
As an immediate response to help deal with the emotional aftermath of the inhumane tragic fire of Grenfell Tower, Kamitan Arts had began running voluntary ‘Poetry 4 Grenfell’ workshops in the RBKC community and more specifically in the North of the Borough Since June 2017.
The Poetry 4 Grenfell movement came about when Emmanuelle Marcel a.k.a. Princess Emmanuelle (Founder and Chair of Kamitan Arts) decided to put a call out at the end of June 2017 for a bi-lingual compilation poetry book , which would include quotes, poems, raps, drawings and photos predominantly from the Grenfell effected community. Subsequently during the months that followed the horrific Grenfell fire, we have managed to collect heart-felt pieces written and drawn from the children, respected elders, humanitarians and activists in our community that have been given a platform to voice their opinions and share a message that has otherwise been manipulated or suppressed by the mainstream media. The amazing response from this call-out has truly been immense.
Performances and sharings by the Poetry4Grenfell poets which include Harriet Gore (Touch Love Worldwide),Princess Emmanuelle (EmpresS *1), Voice of Reason and Alexander D Great have taken place at the Carnival Launch, Carnival Pioneers, for the Portobello Film Festival’s Grenfell Tribute Night at Maxilla, and is what brought about the “Poetry 4 Grenfell” short film.
A Young person decided to come on board with Kamitan Arts to document some of these local oral testimonies with us, which resulted in a Golden Heart Trellick Award-winning guerrilla short ‘Poetry 4 Grenfell’ (Best Art Film at Portobello Film Festival 2017). Mostly all involved in creating the ‘Poetry 4 Grenfell’ short are children, young people and elders from our Ladbroke Grove and Latimer Rd community and those that have been effected by the tragic Grenfell fire in June 2017. We hope to extend this film with better equipment and crew on board to give it the justice and exposure it deserves at a more professional and international level.
A West London publishing company will be supporting the book project and all proceeds (once publishing costs are cut out) will go towards a local NGO that caters for the emotional and mental well-being of the survivors and families of those that have passed in this tragedy as well as towards Kamitan Arts’ longer term artistic projects in our community supporting local adults and young people effected by Grenfell.
We aim to help artistically heal and give a voice to our community at a time they feel no one is listening to them.
To positively affect all those involved in our projects as well as our traumatised community through the observation of our artistic expressions.