Festival of Dissent
A day celebrating dissent at NGMH marked the end of the Heritage Project in May 2023. The day was developed for and by the local community. There were short presentations, music, and spoken word around current themes of political dissent, and celebrated historic dissenters from the area and beyond. These were captured, visually and in written form, for a post-festival online publication, and you can view these below.
In keeping with the ethics of the Meeting House, the day of celebration also highlighted the disgrace of food banks and raised money in solidarity with local food banks. Artists appearing were given the opportunity to donate their fees to food bank funds, and there were collections from those attending.
The Talks
View videos from the day here. You can click the links in the titles to see full transcripts.
Alim Kamara
Emily Hanna-Grazebrook
Author Biographies
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Over the past 20 years, the founder of Storie Storie Alim has taught workshops, run assemblies, delivered presentations, and performed at hundreds of schools across London, the UK and globally – including India, Sierra Leone, Dubai, USA, Peru, Amsterdam, Mexico, Kenya, and Canada. At least 50,000 boys and girls have witnessed and been impacted by Alim’s creative stories. His high-energy delivery and thought-provoking poems and fables have taught children and young people the importance of self-esteem, creative expression, identity, culture and history.
However Alim’s impacts goes beyond the classroom. Working with prestigious institutions such as Ministry of Defence, Channel 4, and Amnesty International, he uses the old age craft of the spoken word to empower leaders and promote inclusive societies.
Booking him means you are in for a treat.
Website - https://www.storiestorie.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/storiestoriehq/
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@storiestorie
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/storiestorieHQ
Tik Tok - https://www.tiktok.com/@storiestorieHq
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Katy worked at the BFI from 2001 to 2016, working as a non-fiction curator specialising in British documentary film from the 1920s to the present since 2008. She produced the BFI DVD release The Joy of Sex Education (2008) and her film, The Happy Man Tree (2023), is being shown at the Picture House and other cinemas across the UK which have signed up to the Green Screen Network.
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Becksy Becks is a Bedroom Poet, working with the written and spoken word.
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Emily grew up surrounded by story and music. Running wild in the countryside of Kent by day, she entertained (& terrified) her cousins and sibling with story. By night, she sat in front of the fire with her Northern Irish family telling and singing of fairy folk, ghosts, monsters and myths. Her folk musician father helped her find her musicality and singing voice, something often used when Emily tells.
Emily spent 10 years teaching English in inner-city London schools. Telling stories was key to making connections and raising the self-esteem of young people demoralised by the school system. This continues to be a passion for Emily, engaging with children and young people in schools, storytelling clubs, and community events.
As Dragonfly Tales Emily has been a professional storyteller in and around London for the past 10 years, telling in national museums and galleries including The Museum of London, The National Gallery and The Royal Academy of Arts.
Emily also captivates adult audiences with her “Stories for all Seasons” evening shows. Described by audience members as ‘magical, heartbreaking, hilarious!’, Emily performs at festivals around the UK and Northern Ireland, and has told tales in all sorts of places – monasteries, caves, river boats, graveyards, steam trains.
Most importantly, she tells regularly to her son Leo. Emily believes that the role of a storyteller is to inspire the storyteller in others - she and young Leo currently host an award-nominated children’s podcast series “Dragonfly Tales”, providing free stories for families all around the world.
Facebook – Dragonfly Tales – Emily Hanna
Insta - @emdragonflytales
TikTok - @dragonflytales
LinkTree – linktr.ee/dragonflytales
Twitter - @EmilyDragonfly
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Dr Brenna Hassett is a biological anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of Central Lancashire and author of popular books. She is ¼ of Team TrowelBlazers, an advocacy project celebrating the contributions of women to the ‘digging sciences’ of archaeology, palaeontology, and geology.
TrowelBlazers: www.trowelblazers.com
Books: https://bookshop.org/shop/brennawalks
Twitter / TikTok / Instagram: @TrowelBlazers
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Alex Lyons is an MRes student at Birkbeck College. Her research focuses on popular and festive cultures during the War of the Three Kingdoms and Interregnum period, specifically looking at the development of Father Christmas and what it can tell us about politics, religion and customs of people in that period. Alex is devoted to spreading the message that Father Christmas and Santa Claus are different people!
Instagram / BlueSky / Threads /Twitter @Christmastorian
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Johannah Barrett is poet and a qualified Clerkenwell and Islington Guide and member of CIGA, the Clerkenwell and Islington Guide Association.
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Dr. Tanis Hinchcliffe taught architectural history for thirty years in Schools of Architecture. She has done extensive research in the history of Islington’s housing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is the author of North Oxford (1992) and co-author (with John Bold) of Discovering London’s Buildings (2009).
Richard Hill was trained as an architect and in recent years has specialised in the conservation of historic buildings, for example the Midland Grand Hotel, St Pancras, and Hawksmoor’s St Alfege Church Greenwich. His book on the aesthetics of architecture – Designs and Their Consequences – was published by Yale University Press in 1999.
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Dr David Wengrow is Professor of Comparative Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. He is the co-author of ‘The Dawn of Everything’ with the late David Graeber and author of several books on comparative human cultures.