SXWKS: DREALITY & Why You Should Attend

It's no rare fact that a lot of us are working in jobs we don't like. Or some are working in jobs they like but at inconvenient times (it's true).

Some can't work in the jobs they like due to many reasons. Some want to create the jobs they want to work in but don't know how to or rather have to go through the "struggle" to get there.

Struggle.

Dreams.

Ambitions.

Bills.

Responsi-

Let's move on. This week SXWKS.com, a creative collective comprising of writers, poets, singers, filmmakers, photographers, rappers, illustrators, actors/actresses, producers, designers and more are putting on an event to mark their one year anniversary. It's called: DREALITY an anagram of the words DREAM and REALITY.

This isn’t an open mic/performance event. It’s an experience. All acts are being structured around this theme bringing individual perspective from all members to the audience. There will be an exhibition from the visual artists and most importantly a chance to engage with the collective and everyone else there.

Like I said, before: a lot of us work jobs we don’t want to or jobs we have to or are still finding our way. This isSXWKS in general.

Many of the members have full time and part time jobs. Some of them work for themselves jst barely bringing in enough to eat and sometimes get around. Some are still in education. Some are fully fledged in their careers. But all of them are YOU.

YOU. Yeah, you. The ones who stay up late after work writing poetry, editing videos, planning new business angles, planning your next photoshoot, planning trips abroad, saving every penny for that new piece of tech, barely home because you’re always out working, facing opposition from left, right and center, not knowing where their next income is going to come from, the ones who feel it deep within that their creativity is where life comes from.

SXWKS are You. You are SXWKS. And this is our DREALITY.

Come and be a part of the experience. Come and hear your stories told, come to a space where others can relate to you, where you can strengthen yourself, ambitions and each other. Where you can connect, build and ultimately leave ready to make your dreams become true, regardless of your reality.

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sxwks-presents-dreality-tickets-17953687964

SXWKS: ”Nothing matches the worlds pursuit of freedom; freedom is not a privilege, it is a right – passion is a duty. SXWKS is our collective response to passion; it is the abandonment of societal restrictions and the pursuit of purpose”.

www.sxwks.com

- Jolade (@thejolade)

Full Documentary out of Sunday 5pm. A poem by Caleb Femi featured in the upcoming documentary (of the same title). This poem depicts a 90s kid's curiosity of his parents' lives during the 70s. What was it like to experience disco funk at its pinnacle? Afrobeat at its early stages? What were the parties like? Why did they were those clothes? What values did people hold during that time? How are we influenced by that era today?

SOMETHING TO KICK OFF YOUR AUGUST.

SXWKS presents, DREALITY, a submersion into the intangible substance of dreams through words, visual arts and music.  An amalgamation of the artistic disciplines within SXWKS creating one unique experience that will stay with you long after the show.  DREALITY is the first of its kind in London and is not to be missed.  Get your tickets here

EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE OUR SHOW, STILL DREAMING, AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE FEST on the 19th  OF August.

For more info and tickets, click here.

SO OUR OFFICIAL WEBSITE LAUNCHED EARLY LAST WEEK. CHECK IT OUT. SXWKS.COM

They look at you The same way you look at them You are seeing the God in each other Yet seeing the devil in yourselves No wonder you keep burning One an other. - World wars on street corners

- Josette Dennis

Lost Sons

she is her mother. she is everyone that touched her everyone that loved themselves through her. the abusing of her pores as they pour into her she is full of emptiness. the safe house for soldiers in steady rhythms, their soles and souls belittling her flesh they did not see her skin like the new world. so some nights Christopher's saw her integument like foreign lands for exploring calling her "my West Indian ting" her real name pushed into the well of her throat his ship carrying sea men test her waters hands search in her thighs for diamonds until they spilt the skin of an earth's surface she wishes she was the thickness of her mothers dermis instead she is sexy her thickness deserves this service - is not one where God is present she turns his name into prayers waiting patiently for him to arrive covering her with not so holy waters she is just another lamb he slaughters in the abattoir of his body she wonders how it once looked like a safe house how sacrifice of herself cleanses his sin as of recent, she is forgetting how to do this; how to be a medic a mother a priest to Christopher the holster of her hips have been home to the hands of too many gunmen that cock back and shoot bullets then return home as she bleeds the blood of women before her through the wounds.

- Josette Dennis

Households of the mind

my mother told me "chores are necessities keeping your space tidy, preserved" so you can see clearly anyone and anything entering the debris under the rug of your mind hides treasures under the planks of wood - also verminous thoughts i think those mornings when she made me fold and iron clothes scrub and sweep causing torn fingertips she knew one day, like today i would lay in bed able to use the gentle disciplined hands of my childhood to fold tangled thoughts and scrub clean dirty memories of the chore adulthood had made of my mind so then, this life could truly be lived. - Josette Dennis

“Here strange and ugly are the very same thing”

Crackers and Scars

I made a right, then a left and another right. Blood in my sweat I am far from free yet. Cuts above my eyes from the thorns like I'm their saviour. A saviour on the run, favoured under the sun. Freedom is my portion, but the crackers' nearby I can feel it. Craters in my back where the stars fell before my eyes, darkness in its purest form clouds over my highs. Over again the sound resounds in my dreams, echoing through the air while I stifle my screams and numb the pain with visions of back when I was in Africa -- with my woman on my side and my child above her hide. Now I am forced to pander to massa not my master. The sound of the whip cracking in the night sky only makes my feet move faster. I cannot bear to be on my knees again knowing it shall not be in the presence of the pastor. If I had the weapons they used I would find the wife of the master and I would blast her. Force him to prick his fingers in the fields of cotton trying to fill a quota in this arduous task or, watch while we rape his defenceless sisters or, take their children and claim them as our own or, sell them like cattle forever ready for the slaughter or, take them from their homes back to Africa and force them to chew on the religion of our gods or, pull their mother tongue from out of their mouths or, sit atop thrones of white men while we nary have to bend our backs to pick up the very whip we'll use to put cracks in their backs and scars on their hearts for a genocide long forgotten, and a pilferage of an entire race that will always be remembered like the remnants of the embers that were used to brand us all niggers. Or I could keep running, and hope that the blackness of my skin and my cunning will aid me throughout the night to further myself from that uncomfortable sight where our backs are their canvas which they choose to stain with their pious justification, feeling no pain for there have been no ramifications for we fight against each other -- and while we say we love ourselves hypocrisy reigns deep for like crabs in a barrel we only want to see our product left upon shelves for the acceptance of a people that will never be ours. We rarely remember when we hung like strange fruit for hours. Running from crackers and hiding our scars. Living behind masks, dying behind bars. If only we could go back to the red sanded planet of Mars and reclaim our place among the stars. 

-Aiden