SPINE Festivals Gone By
We’ve had so much fun delivering SPINE over the years. The work of the Artists in Residence, the theatre, local artists and everyone in between is what makes this festival so fantastic. On this page an archive of some of the activities from SPINE Festivals in the past.
SPIN! 10 Exciting New Voices in Poetry Anthology
As part of SPINE Festival Lite 2024, we launched SPIN! 10 Exciting New Voices in Poetry edited by Joseph Coelho and illustrated by Ruthine Burton. The anthology features fifty poems from ten debut poets, three new poems by Joseph Coelho and the three winning poems from SPINE Festival 2023’s Kindness Poetry competition.
Themes range from video gaming to ice skating and football, hair, holidays, sisterhood, generational memories, friendship, the sense of self, personal experiences, music, and family life.
The poets are Anneliese Amoah, Antoinette Brooks, Sadatu Futa, Eileen Gbagbo, Shagufta K. Iqbal, Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, Rowan Kiffin Murray, Jay Sandhu, Ioney Smallhorne, and Jasmine Thien.
Suitable from ages 8+.
Spine 2024
Our flagship SPINE Festival is an annual pan-London spoken word and arts festival for children and families and was delivered in libraries across 16 boroughs during Spring. 2024 was a ‘lite’ edition which ran from 21 March – 21 April and explored the theme of MAGIC & IMAGINATION.
SPINE Festival Lite featured the launch of our SPIN! anthology edited by Joseph Coelho (SPINE 2023 Ambassador and Waterstones’ Children’s Laureate 22-24), creative writing workshops designed and delivered by our 16 Poets in Residence and fun activities by local artists.
Boroughs
Participating boroughs for 2024 included Brent and Harrow (North-West), Newham and Tower Hamlets (East), Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham (West), Southwark (South), Bromley, Lewisham and Greenwich (South-East), Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth (South-West) and Islington, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster (Central). Click on the regions below to see what was on offer during the 2024 festival:
Poets in residence included: Adam Kammerling, Alice Frecknall, Alim Kamara, Arji Manuelpillai, Desree, Ehireme Omoaka, Eileen Gbagbo, Güneş Güven, Jasmin Thien, Justin Coe, Laila Sumpton, Linden K McMahon, Miss Jacqui, Paul Lyalls, Rachel Lewis and Zohab Khan. In addition, there was a programme of events for families and children hosted by local artists in each borough.
During the festival, we released Artist Spotlights of the Poets in Residence so you could get to know them better. Head over to the Spotlights page and follow along on our socials (@applesandsnakes) to keep in touch. Spin! is now available to buy online. You can read a review of the anthology here.
Spine 2023
Spine 2023 saw the return of a larger scale festival, all centred on the theme of kindness. 16 Arists in Residence were paired across boroughs in London, bringing together mixed art forms in libraries, all free for children and their families to enjoy. They were at the following locations:
Brent and Harrow
Bromley and Lewisham
Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham
Islington and Tower Hamlets
Merton and Sutton
Newham and Greenwich
Southwark and Wandsworth
Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea
Check out the SPINE 2023 Artists in Residence.
The festival’s inaugural ‘Kindness Poetry Competition‘ was judged SPINE 2023 Ambassador Joseph Coelho (Waterstones’ Children’s Laureate 2022-2024) in each partnering borough. A huge part of the work that Joseph delivers is around diversifying children’s literature. Libraries were also incredibly important to his childhood so he made the perfect choice to be an ambassador for this year’s festival.
Congratulations to Praven Kubavat, Kyan Norris and Mattie Stone. You can read the winning poems here: Kindness Competition Winners
SPIN Shows
This year, SPIN shows took pace instead of a theatre production. SPIN took place at the following locations and dates:
Fri 14 Apr: Islington with Desree, Adam Kammerling and Antoinette Brooks | Tower Hamlets with Desree, Adam Kammerling and Jay Sandhu
Sat 15 Apr: Hammersmith and Fulham with Stanley Iyanu, Kenny Baraka and Gayathiri Kamalakanthan | Ealing with Kenny Baraka, Güneş Güven and Stanley Iyanu
Fri 21 Apr: Merton with Repeatbeat, Zohab Zee Khan and Eileen Gbagbo | Sutton with Repeatbeat, Zohab Zee Khan and Eileen Gbagbo
Sat 22 Apr: Bromley with Alim Kamara, Anneliese Amoah and Jasmin Thien | Lewisham with Alim Kamara, Laila Sumpton and Anneliese Amoah
Wed 26 Apr: Harrow with Khairani Barokka, Simon Mole and Paul Lyalls
Fri 28 Apr: Wandsworth with Simon Mole, Shagufta Iqbal and Ioney Smallhorne
Sat 29 Apr: Southwark with Arji Manuelpillai, Shagufta Iqbal and Ioney Smallhorne
Wed 3 May: Newham with Arji Manuelpillai, Miss Jacqui, Jaspreet Kaur | Greenwich with Güneş Güven, Laila Sumpton, Miss Jacqui
Fri 5 May: Kensington & Chelsea with Kat François, Francesca Beard and Jaspreet Kaur | Westminster with Kat François, Francesca Beard and Sadatu Futa
Photos from Spine 2023
Photo credit: Suzi Corker – suzicorker.com
SPINE LITE 2022
SPINE Festival ran a ‘LITE’ version in 2022. This was a less intense programme with no artists in residence. The decision to make run a smaller version for the festival was to give the library partners a small break, post-pandemic.
In 2022, the lite festival’s theme was ‘KINDNESS’ and launched on 3rd March 2022, World Book Day, taking place throughout the month across libraries situated at the heart of London’s communities, both digitally and in-person. The free programme of spoken word and arts activities featured a six-week Discover Arts Award Telling Tales creative writing workshops programme for 7-11 year olds, tour of the playful Half Moon Theatre ‘Dollop & Crinkle’ show, and exciting local artists events.
To celebrate the launch of SPINE LITE, as well as World Book Day, we commissioned a delightful blog from Joseph Coelho – all around his book Poems Aloud and how to use poetry to inspire children. It’s a piece we’ll continue to share going forward (not because we’re mentioned in it!) as Joseph has a fantastic way with children and genuinely supports their growth and skills.
More about SPINE LITE
In previous years, the festival has been quite large and has run for a few years now. The vibe in recent years has been slightly different as some of the events took place online due to government restrictions. We felt this didn’t affect the magic of SPINE festival and thought we’d share with you what SPINE means to us (Apples and Snakes) and to the communities that take part.
We interviewed Sarah Smith from Brent Libraries so you can get to know the festival a little better. Read the interview in this blog post.
Where did it take place?
SPINE LITE Festival 2022 takes place in the following London boroughs. To check out what’s happening in your borough, contact your local library.
Brent ● Bromley ● Croydon ● Ealing ● Greenwich ● Hammersmith and Fulham ● Islington ● Kensington and Chelsea ● Lewisham ● Merton ● Newham ● Southwark ● Sutton ● Tower Hamlets ● Wandsworth ● Westminster
Some of the events that took place:
Thu 3 Mar | Colliers Wood Library – ZooLab: Zoo on a Broom
Wed 9 Mar | Walworth Library – Improv with Pillow Talk Theatre
Sat 12 Mar | Hammersmith Library – Storytelling: Hom
Sat 26 Mar | Hammersmith Library – Storytelling: Wonder
Tue 29 Mar | Mordon Library – Comic (Manga) Workshop
SPINE 2021
In 2021, the festival’s theme was ‘EMPATHY’ and launched on 1 June 2021, World Children’s Day.
Check out the Artists in Residence from 2021. They were paired with two boroughs:
Dan Mayfield/Lalia Nadia Sumpton
Caitlin Strongham/Christy Ku
Amari Harris/Alfiah Brown
Dan Simpson/Maya Campbell
Milly Rolle/Ehireme Omoaka
Patrick Evans/Yara Rodrigues
Linden Katherine McMahon/Victoria Fifield
SPINE 2020
In 2020, SPINE Festival saw over 160 events delivered across 17 London boroughs, bringing together local communities to creatively explore the theme of ‘Our World’.
We’re really proud of the work the artists produced last year and we think it’s a great resource to keep coming back to:
Each year, SPINE Festival also offers a host of activities specifically for local school and community groups.
Produced by Apples and Snakes in partnership with Brent Library with support from John Lyon’s Charity and (previously) Arts Council England. We also would like to thank library authorities across London.
Photo credit: Suzi Corker
Insert HTML here