The School of Arts is currently hosting an artwork installation as part of the Platforma 5 festival, currently running across the Kent and Medway region.

The biennial Platforma festival for the arts by, with, and about refugees and migration is produced by Counterpoints Arts. It brings together artists, organisations, funders and others for discussions, workshops and the chance to share practice and showcase new work.

The piece, entitled ‘Lilacs in Bloom’ by artist Joy C Martindale, is a participatory artwork made in collaboration with survivors of modern-day slavery and human trafficking. The participants of the project were a gentleman from Lithuania and a mother from West Africa and her three young children. Working with paint and scraps of colourful cloth collected by Joy along the tidelines of the coast in Southeast Kent, the artist and the participants explored creativity as a means of being free in the moment to choose how to express thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

You can read more about the process of putting together the artwork here.

The artwork is currently on display in the Jarman foyer, until 25 October 2019.