Shedding Light

Shedding Light(Mabelle Arts)
My Role: Arts Facilitator

Shedding Light is a community arts project where newcomer language learners at Skills for Change turned the words of their immigration journey into art. Across three workshops, the group moved step by step through the community arts process: from words, to stories, to poems, to a physical installation of handmade lanterns.

The completed lanterns were hung at the Iftar Night Market at Mabelle Arts, where the community saw their own words lit up in public for the first time.

The Three Workshops

Workshop 1 · Words to Stories (Online)

Participants shared their favourite words from their immigration journey. Those words became collaborative stories, created collectively by the group.

Workshop 2 · Stories to Haikus (Online)

The collaborative stories were distilled into haikus. Each journey compressed into seventeen syllables of meaning.

Workshop 3 · Haikus to Lanterns (In-Person)

Participants built lanterns by hand and incorporated their haikus and words into them, giving physical form to the stories.

The lanterns were installed at the Iftar Night Market at Mabelle Arts, illuminating newcomer words and stories in a shared public space. For many participants, it was the first time seeing something they wrote displayed publicly — and seeing their community gather around it.

Photo Credits: Katrin Faridani