Wild Service Festival Launch – TALK: Briony Spandler

Briony Spandler, a Leeds poet, artist, and activist, will discuss her collaboration with ecologists, scientists, and activists, which led to the creation of her poem and the Wild Service Festival.

Briony Spandler is a poet, artist and activist from Leeds. Her meditative ecopoetry poses philosophical questions, intended to invoke activism. An advocate for lifelong learning, she is about to embark on a PhD to continue her creative enquiry into how the climate emergency impacts the ecology of a single hedgerow. She has headlined at spoken word poetry events and won ‘Best Poem’ at Unislam, the UK’s National University Poetry Slam & Summit and is an active member of the campaign group Right To Roam West Yorkshire.

In this FREE talk as part of the launch of The Wild Service Festival, Briony will deliver an engaging insight into her year-long poetic enquiry about a single hedgerow. She will describe an emotional, creative journey that started on a World Earth Day trespass in a local field, which led to the creation of the visual ecopoem, O BARC ODES FROM THE EDGERHOW which will be on display in SCRAP from 11 Oct – 31 Oct (Weds-Sat 10am – 4pm).

Briony explains how she came to collaborate with ecologists, scientists and activists, including Trash Free Trails and Right To Roam, which has so far resulted in this exhibition and the creation of the first Wild Service Festival.

This event is part of the launch of the Wild Service Festival, a combination of free and paid events encompassing visual poetry, music, spoken word, talks, and workshops, the Wild Service Festival celebrates the creative and practical ways we can simultaneously reconnect with and become better guardians of nature, while improving our well-being through the power of participation.

Britain ranks last in Europe on biodiversity, wellbeing, and nature connectedness. Nature is suffering, and so are we. ‘Wild Service’ – the visionary concept and book crafted by the Right to Roam campaign – argues that humanity’s loss and nature’s need are two sides of the same story. It calls for mass reconnection to the land and a commitment to its restoration.

Any questions, please contact admin@scrapstuff.co.uk.