Our work
As well as weekly creative workshops and our ongoing allotment project, we are always innovating to find new ways to come together over food and stories, while challenging negative migration narratives. From books to videos, textiles to gardening, suppers to song – we create spaces of solidarity and welcome where radical hope can flourish.
“When I come to the workshop, most of time I forget my immigration situation. It brings me hope. I come to listen and see people. So it's joyful.”
‘We’re a collaborative community. We come from different countries, being positive, exchanging cultures, respecting one another, smiling at each other, creating and trading our spirits.”
Creative Workshops
We have been running weekly creative workshops for six years, exploring a range of activities, including storytelling, poetry, drama, textiles, art and music. We’ve collaborated with some amazing practitioners in the process, including refugee theatre company Phosphoros, TS Elliot prize-winning poet Joelle Taylor, storyteller Jumana Moon, London College of Fashion lecturer Sarah May and drummers Mbilla Arts.
Our creative workshops are open to refugees, people seeking asylum and local residents who want to show solidarity. The lively sessions start with warm-up games followed by creative exercises. We might share stories, write a poem or draw a picture. We value the power of the act of creation and know the importance of providing a space where the we can laugh together and share moments of joy and hope.
Allotment Project
We have been at Higham Hill Common Allotments in Walthamstow since 2020, starting our allotment adventure with two raised beds during lockdown. A year later we graduated to Plot 96 and recently took on an extra half plot. We share knowledge about growing in different countries and enjoy learning from our mistakes. Our best crops so far? Courgettes (lovely in a chocolate cake), potatoes, tomatoes and so much fruit from the plums, apple and quince trees we inherited.
The allotment is a space where we can grow food and flowers, share stories about food and farming and enjoy being outside together. We know that being in nature, watching things grow and having your hands in the soil boosts wellbeing.
Supported by City Bridge Trust.
Cookery Videos
During the COVID-19 lockdown, we made some smartphone cookery videos to keep ourselves busy and share recipes. Now we have the chance to make 10 new short films demonstrating recipes from the home countries of Stories & Supper members. The videos celebrate our allotment produce and feature conversations about food and friendship, home and belonging.
Recipes include pumpkin curry from Sri Lanka, Venezuelan empanadas, and salt fish with fumbwa from DRC. We’re bringing the films to life through a supper club at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow and five in-person recipe demonstrations. Those further afield can send off for our free recipe cards.
Supported by London Borough of Waltham Forest.
School Workshops
In 2021 and 2023, we delivered creative writing workshops in local schools during Refugee Week, so far visiting three primary schools and three secondary schools in Waltham Forest. We also welcomed a group of primary children to our allotment. We work in partnership with local schools to bring people with lived experience of forced migration and young residents together, harnessing the power of stories and nature, and equipping young people with the knowledge to act as agents of change, becoming refugee allies.
“I really enjoyed the workshop, it made me really aware of what is happening in the world with refugees. Also after today I felt more connected with my home and origins.”
If you would like us to run a workshop in your school, get in touch.
Home-City Spaces of Care
This creative research project is a collaboration between Stories & Supper, Phosphoros Theatre and Olivia Sheringham (an academic researcher in cultural geography and social justice at Birkbeck University of London). Starting in early 2025, the project will explore different ways of understanding and practising ‘care’ in the context of hostile immigration policies and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
Through a series of creative workshops – including activities such as storytelling, drama, mapping, zine-making and textiles – we will play, think and explore what care, home and belonging mean for people with lived experience of the UK’s asylum system and how we might imagine more caring and care-full futures shaped by solidarity and connection.
