The Disfluencies CoLab: Embodying Mother Languages through Poetry & Drawing

Part of International Mother Language Day 2026

A chance to explore what a mother language means to participants beyond spoken fluency. We will explore how we can feel nurtured and nourished by expressing a mother language visually through signs and embodiment. The workshop will consider translation, sign languages, drawings and mark making and how all these elements of communication offer a space where we can re-imagine what a mother language might offer. This is an interactive event using poetry and drawing to unlock identity and cultural connections through a polyvocal and polyvisual approach. Participants are invited to bring work in progress or create a few lines of poetry on the spot to explore ways of layering text with practices of image-making. All are welcome and we will share in a non-judgmental and relaxed space to support creative responses.

Maximum of 15 spaces - please reserve your space

Venue: Room 2.2, Student Union Building, University of Manchester

Access: We aim to ensure this event is accessible - please contact us with any queries. Information on building access:

Student Union information

AccessAble

Who:

Lisa Kelly is a poet and editor with single-sided deafness and is half Danish. Her second collection The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet) was a Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation in 2023, and her first collection A Map Towards Fluency (Carcanet) was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, 2021.

Louise Adkins is an artist working across photography, text, and drawing. Her practice explores the intersection between performance and the documentation of historical events. She often works with collections, archives, libraries, and heritage sites.

Melissa Tanti is a Research Fellow at Coventry University. Her book, The Translating Subject (March 2025), explores the queer, feminist, transnational, and decolonizing potentials in multilingual experimental texts. She co-creates research projects that enable communities to tell their stories in innovative and creative ways.

Cathy Soreny is a transdisciplinary creative researcher working across filmmaking, nursing and disability. Her PhD research project Stories Beyond Words is exploring co-created approaches to filming and representing communication disabilities.

A production of the Disfluencies Co-Lab: a creative collective of people who are Deaf, stammer, use communication devices, speak marginalised/threatened languages, are neurodiverse,and more. We are united by a vision and passion to challenge societal norms that have grown from unquestioned expectations of speech fluency. We see value and pride in diversity, and seek creative, radically accessible ways to explore and develop approaches to shift these expectations. Together we aim to expand thinking around linguistic diversity to embrace marginalised vocal differences, multilingualism, and forms of non-normative communication.

Co-Lab Founding Members:Louise Adkins; Derek E. Daniels; Conor Foran; Emily Fox; Lisa Kelly; lisa luxx; Julie (Mack)McNamara; Jamie Preece; Peyvand Sadeghian; Cathy Soreny; Joshua St. Pierre; Emma Sullivan; Melissa Tanti

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Host or Publisher Stories Beyond Words