A gorgeous conversation between Judy (museums & heritage professional), Michelle (@_artdp, creative producer, community activist), Lex (poet, storyteller and conflict manager) and Swareena (designer) in the Myatts Fields greenhouse. Michelle and Lex are Myatts Fields regulars who contribute to the area's creative life in many ways. Michelle is on the Park events committee and is encouraging more youth involvement on the back of her hugely successful hip hop festival. Lex had a big turning point in his spoken word career at an event on the bandstand in 2022. Judy and Swareena are experiencing the Park for the first time on the day this conversation was recorded. In fact Swareena had moved from India to Lambeth only seven days ago. We're so pleased she's able to join us!
Lex (performing name Vulnerable Warriort):
“The reason I'm here today is because Myatts Field has played a very big part in my development as a spoken word, artist, poet, and served as a catalyst for everything I’m doing now. The specific day is the 7th of August, 2022. It was a poetry event, with people performing on the bandstand and I was told about it by Michelle. It might have been the hottest day of the year at the time. I didn't come down to perform. I just came to watch and participate spectate. And I was, ‘Am I going to go up?’ Yes. No. Lester Gomez Medina did a really clever poem. But it still didn’t make me want to go up, until a lady went up and read Marianne Williamson's speech, which is attributed to Nelson Mandela. There was a line in it that says, “your playing small doesn't serve the world.”
“Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”
And I was like, okay, she's talking to you. Just get up and do your damn poem. So I got up and I did a poem called Black Sheep, which reframes the negative view of the black sheep. As soon as I started speaking, people started walking towards the stage and paying attention. And, By the way, I was nervous, nervous, nervous. Somebody came over to me and said, I hope you keep those words, because I felt like you were talking about in my life. And I was stumped. I'm not someone who's lost for words. As you can tell, I was lost for words. I was like, thank, thank you.
I performed again in that evening at an event that Michelle had, the same poem. And this people like, yes, that's me. He's talking about me. So again, it was like, oh, okay. Oh, there's power in these words. And so I've continued sharing. I now do lots of open mic events. I've been paid to perform my poetry. It’s led to me putting on the creative poetry workshops. And all of all of that is traces back to the 7th August, 2022, taking the chance to perform a poem. And then realizing the power of your words. And it's taught me that I'm not writing for myself, I'm writing for others, and to make other people feel seen."
Michelle:
"In July, 2020, I did a hiphop festival here and I had over 300 people attend it. I’m on the Park events committee, and I had a lot of controversial conversations about antisocial behavior of young people of color, being in one space. And my argument was, like we want to engage with young people and how else can we do it, except do an event for young people? I spent six weeks with these young people working with them on their music from at Longfield Hall and getting them involved in event management. If you are a young artist and you just rock up and go on the microphone, you won't really have an understanding as to what happens to make that event happen so you don't take ownership of it.
I won an award from Lambeth for my impact in the community. The event brought the community together. It was young people expressing themselves. We had graffiti artistry, we had break dancing, we had rapping, we had all different things going on in different areas of the park.
What's important about Myatt’s Park, what stands out, is the fact that the community is so diverse and it's open for everybody….So when I was going for a very dark time, the only sanctuary I had at that time was Myatts Field Park, and I'd walk around and around and around looking at nature and thinking about choices I was making in my life. So to be able to give back to a space which helped me is very important. When you get stronger and you're healed from your mental health and you're able to then to give back to others in that same space, that's quite empowering.
Swareena:
“I shifted to this country 7 days ago. Exhausted.... For me it's all about taking the first step, because I took the first step to get out of the house, and there are interesting people everywhere, it’s just about you reaching out. So every day is a story, it's all about narration and how you look at it. Like we are four people and we all have our own story chapters that we can bring on the table and it can help other people.”
