Past Projects
SLAMbassadors Team
These workshops were run in partnership with The Poetry Society. Keen and talented young participants got the chance to be part of the SLAMbassadors team and opportunity to work with a range of professional artists, and to perform at a variety of events and venues, including: The Globe, the...
Dividing Lines
Dividing Lines was an innovative project using performance poetry to work with young people in Tower Hamlets and Hackney to explore positive and creative responses to conflict situations. The project was led by Subtext. Throughout November, dynamic spoken word artists, Breis and Joelle Taylor, worked with seventy 13-14 year olds...
Think Out Loud
Think Out Loud was a free performance event from the spoken poets of the future - Slambassadors and New Slambassadors. Through rap, hip-hop, MCs, the spoken word, and poetry, young artists expressed their innovative take on the world. It was a combination of talent from six months of workshops run...
Creative Writing with People with Mental Health Issues
NAWE in partnership with Subtext. Creative Writing with people with Mental Health issues This workshop was aimed at creative writing tutors and writers with an interest in working in mental health settings or those already working in the field who want to share their skills and develop new ones. The...
Young Writers Group - Script Mix Rehearsed Reading
This event was an evening of powerful and funny short plays by six young writers from by Subtext’s Young Writers Group, read by professional actors. It was directed and facilitated by Nadia Fall. 19th September 2006, Brady Centre Theatre Our partner in this project was the Tower Hamlets Summer University...
Rapping with ShortMAN (14yrs - 25yrs)
Rappers, emcees and poets were invited to join dynamic spoken word artist, ShortMAN, to create new work and hone their performance skills. They had an opportunity to record their pieces and took part in a show case event on Monday 21st August. This free event was in partnership with Summer...
Langdon Park Literature Festival
Langdon Park Literature week took place during the week of 26-30 June 2006. Seven writers and artists worked with year 9 students, inspiring them to create new writing which will be published in an anthology later this year....
HIV/STI prevention project
A project combining writing and graphic design, and challenging four groups of 15-25 year olds to design peer education materials around sexual health issues. This is a partnership project with Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust and the sexual health service, Options. Students work with poet, Adisa, and Hackney based designers Adisa...
Graffiti writing project at Tower of London
April 2005 In partnership with the Tower of London we ran a graffiti art project with young people from the Bromley Hall Pupil Referral Unit and the Tower Hamlets Youth Offenders Team. The participants learned about the history of the Tower and its graffiti as a starting point for visual...
Oaklands School literature week
February 2005 In February, Subtext, along with a group of parents and school staff, ran a literature week at Oaklands Secondary School in Bethnal Green. We had a fantastic line up of writers – including prize winning authors such as Malorie Blackman, Melvin Burgess and Alan Gibbons - plus graffiti...
Writing workshops at the Royal London Hospital
July 2004 In partnership with Vital Arts at the Royal London Hospital, we ran a series of writing workshops for staff at all levels within the hospital. Writer and experienced teacher, Jacob Ross took the participants through a series of writing exercises and discussion sessions. The workshops ended with an...
Poetry at St. Clements Hospital
June 2004 From June 2004, we have part-funded poetry workshops with clients experiencing mental health difficulties in the Pinhey Ward at St Clements Hospital, led by the poet David Neita. The workshops have been a resounding success, with 100% service user satisfaction. Staff have described it as one of the...
An evening with Zadie Smith
Eastside Arts hosted an evening for Zadie Smith to a packed audience at the Spitz. She read from her novels, White Teeth and Autograph Man, answered audience questions and signed copies of her books....
Poetry in the Park
In July 2001, Eastside Arts organised Poetry in the Park: a free festival celebrating the opening of the new Ecology Centre in Mile End Park, E3. It featured the brightest stars of London’s performance poetry scene, led by the acclaimed John Hegley, and included performances from Mohammed Mire, Crystal,...
Eastside Young Writers’ group
In 2000, Eastside Arts ran a series of writing workshops at Tower Hamlets Summer University. The workshops were called ‘Stories not for Telling’ and got the young people to write about life as they saw it and explore stories that aren’t always told or heard. After the workshops all the...
In our Shoes
In Our Shoes invited young people to look at refugee experiences through a series of written and spoken word workshops, and culminated in a collective spoken word performance where the young people performed alongside professional artists. The project ran in 2003 and 2004, working with 9 secondary schools in...
