West Wing Arts Centre

Ticket To Ride: Spoken Word Festival

The first spoken word festival in Slough supported by Slough Art at the Centre. Ticket to Ride celebrated Slough as a destination for people from around the world that journeyed here to work and live contributing to the economic, cultural and social well bring of the town.  

The calendar of activities and events to promote and showcase original spoken word and poetry in the local area included:

Mushaira
In this project, the West Wing worked in partnership with a local poet to produce an event showcasing exceptional Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi poetry. The event was a great success attended by more than 140 people.

“We are very proud the West Wing has hosted the Mushaira and we can share the rich linguistic heritage from India and Pakistan.” - S.R. Sharma “Meeth”, poet and event organiser

Can Anyone Hear Me?
This was a partnership project with the Slough Mental Health team to raise awareness about mental health. The project involved three artists working with mental health service users to produce a series of monologues that were pwerformed at the West Wing Arts CXentre in November 2008. 100 people enjoyed the show, amongst which many of them were service users. Slough Mental health team would like to work again with the West Wing to produce a new partnership piece of work.

Spoken Word/ Rap Competition
Working in partnership with four Slough youth centres, the West Wing organised rap and spoken word workshops and a competition for 8 to 18 year olds. 

This was a very exciting project that helped more than 60 young people to increase their confidence, raise their aspirations and improve their communication skills.

“I’ve really enjoyed taking part in this project, making my own raps and poems and interacting with other people during the workshop. I feel much more confident speaking in public”.  – Workshop participant