Our BAME students officer Janine is hosting a competition to help you get creative during the University festive break.
Competition
We're asking you to submit your best piece of creative artwork (it could be a drawing or paint, poems/spoken word, speeches - written or audio, or even a video) based on your own cultural experiences. It could be a positive look upon your traditions, customs, or something that showcases an aspect of your culture, it could also be a piece of art based on a negative lived experience, i.e. racism.
You'll be able to anonymously upload your content to our entry survey, and students will vote on the best piece of artwork submitted with prizes up for grabs for the winners.
The objective of Unmask the Soul is to be interactive, to celebrate the many different cultures that make up our student body here at University of Leicester, and to connect students and staff from different cultures.
To enter, you'll need to provide:
- A 20 word blurb explaining your artwork
- Your student email address, year of study, and course (although this will not be published)
- An audio, visual, or photographic piece of atwork
Entries Open:
Monday 14 December at Midday
Entries Close:
Sunday 31 January at 23:59
* PLEASE EMAIL ALL ENTRIES TO SU-MARKETING@LE.AC.UK *
Entries
1. (L) I want natural hair like short afros to be associated with the beautiful aesthetics of flowers and nature & (R) How unchecked internalized racism can control you
2. Torn by two worlds: persevering beyond the stigma of two different cultures.
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3. In this photograph, the connection between a grandmother and her grandchild is symbolised through the traditional mehndi on their hands.
4. WRITTEN ENTRY: 'I’m made from’ answers the question “who am I” by reflecting on the experiences that made me, me.
I'm made from...
I'm made from bus tickets, cereal bars and
painkillers.
I'm made from unspoken emotions as
though butterflies don't emerge from
cocoons but remain as caterpillars.
I'm made from hate, tears and pain.
I'm made from primary-school kept promises
but my efforts to fulfil them have been in vain.
I'm made from Asian cuisine, spices and treats.
I'm made from crisis, catastrophe and Middle Eastern heat.
I'm made from discipline, I wasn't spared the rod
when I grew up.
See I chose to be unhappy and live in reality
because I was beaten to a point where happiness
is what I threw up.
I'm made from wet tarmac, cold winds and
playing basketball with my mates.
I'm made from passive smoke, marijuana vapours,
store-brought JD tracksuits. You see I was raised on a council estate
where cries weren't heard but a deafening vacuum.
Knife crimes have been campaigned for; there
were days where I slept unfed.
Drove under pressure; hopped up on meds,
crashed in my consciousness, I was
left for dead on a hospital bed.
I'm made from cataclysmic chromosomes;
an unfinished genetic jigsaw.
I'm made from shells, not of oysters but
guns which fire pearls into the satin
wrapped saline solutions of victims of
gun violence.
I'm made from hating love, loving hate;
the cold of the cosmos and a time beyond ages.
Disheartened, disappointed in a city that never changes.
Recycling feelings in the compost, I'm
made from aspirations and dreams, out of
my reach, no need to preach, selfishness
and greed.
I'm made from political views;
see my parents sacrificed everything for me,
as they say for the sake of.
But I'm yet to put pen to paper and show
this world what I'm made of.