Artists Platform

Bijli is excited to announce the launch of our Artists Platform and Showcase

Supporting five new writers and performers to develop a performance piece that will form part of a development showcase in early 2023. This will be the first time Bijli will deliver a showcase of this kind.

About the Project

Following on from the success of our New Writers Project the Bijli Artists Platform is an initiative to support the creative expression and skills of underrepresented communities in Scotland.

The project will work with writers and performers who are at the early stages of their artistic journey, and provide them with four months of mentoring from professional writers Tawona Sithole and Mariem Omari.

They will also benefit from a performance workshop where they will learn about gesture, movement and voice projection.

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"Writing can be a lonely, solitary pursuit so having the solidarity of the group was a really uplifting part of my week and protected my creative wellbeing." - Participant, Artists Platform

Supported by Glasgow Life.

Our Artists

Fakhriya stands smiling at the camera wearing a head scarf and brightly patterned dress

Fakhriya

Fakhriya is undertaking her BA in Community Development at the University of Glasgow. Her passion for working with communities has inspired her to learn and listen to others stories. Being part of the Bijli project, ‘We Make the Path’, has sparked an interest in poetry as a means of sharing and voicing what lies deep within her. This has encouraged her to write unapologetically. In her spare time, Fakhriya enjoys watching comedy as “laughter is the medicine of the soul”.

Humayra stands smiling at the camera with her hair down and wears a purple top, with brown coat

Humayra

Humayra’s writing is the negotiation of a Pakistani-Scottish split consciousness, being both, yet neither completely. She explores the contention between individuality and belonging; and love and power.

Portrait of Jonathan Jones

Jonathan

In 2015, Jonathan moved back to Glasgow to rediscover his Weegie roots. He’s working towards his BA in English Lit and Creative Writing. He’s quick witted, kind hearted and brimming with passion and potential.

Priyanka is in a garden wearing a blue cost looking at some flowers that they have picked

Priyanka

Priyanka is a playwright and director. Born in India, they moved to Scotland to pursue a Masters in Writing for Performance at the University of St Andrews. A 2019 graduate from the University of Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Priyanka is interested in understanding and asking questions about the socio-political world we live in today.

Radbia wears a head scarf and sits next to a tree

Rabia

Muslim, British, Asian. Mother, sister, daughter. Originally from England, now living in Glasgow. I turn to the outdoors to recharge and rebalance in my hectic life. My children are my everything. My writing is a journey which begun in my childhood as a way of dealing with life and its pressures, and though shelved many times, I now continue the search to understand myself, hoping that through the expression of poetry I can find peace in the traumas that have shaped me.