STST Word Club x Everything Sounds | The Wicker Arms x Festival of Community

Hosted as part of Staffordshire St's Festival of Community in collaboration with the The Wicker Arms exhibition.

Readings from Hesse K., Phoenix Yemi, George Lynch, Candle Hirst, Nina Winder-Lind and Oísin Roberts

Lu Rose Cunningham in conversation with Rowe Irvin about Rowe’s debut novel 'Life Cycle of a Moth'.

Music from special guests Shovel Dance Collective 


Info:

Thursday 21st August
19:00 - 22.00

Doors at 6:30pm, readings and music from 7-10pm
 

Tickets:
General Admission + Pay it Forward: £15

General Admission: £10

Unwaged/concession: £6

If you would like to attend but the cost is prohibitive, please get contact info@staffordshirest.com. If you are financially able, please consider donating, to keep Staffordshire St events accessible to all.

 

Lu Rose Cunningham | @lurosecunningham 

Lu Rose Cunningham loves winged creatures and wetlands. Cunningham has written for and performed at Leeds Art Gallery; The Hepworth; South London Gallery; Wysing Arts Centre and The Barbican. Cunningham has written for independent journals Pala Press; SPAM; MAP Magazine, Still Point Journal and Worms Magazine. She is co-founder of writing residency space The Writers’ Room, supporting practitioners at the intersection of image and text.

Rowe Irving | @bog__daughter 

Rowe Irving's a writer and artist. In 2025 she was named one of the Observer's Best New Novelists. Her work has appeared in Southward, Prototype 5, Unquiet Slumbers: A Collection of Folk Horror Tales (Nepenthé Press) and The Stinging Fly. Her debut novel, Life Cycle of a Moth, was published in June 2025 by Canongate Books.

Candle Hirst | @candlehirst 

Candle Hirst is an artist and writer from Huddersfield. They write, draw and perform. They have no idea what they are doing.

Phoenix Yemi | @phoenixyemoja 

Phoenix Yemi is a Nigerian-British poet and artist writing at the intersections of body and earth, myth and memory, desire and dissent. Her work lives where language resists, remembers, and reimagines. Rooted in a surrealism of liberation, her creative practice dismantles imposed realities to summon new ways of seeing and being. She is the founder of Black Geographies and writes A Worm Moon, a monthly poetry newsletter for Worms Magazine.

Oisín Roberts | @oisin.roberts 

Oisín Roberts is a writer, reader and bookseller from Derry, Ireland and living in London, England. He's a DIY-librarian at Think Big, Read Community Library. He writes about what he's doing and reading under Oisín Harmful/Inclusions, you find an account on the ugly Instagram ether (@inclusions0000) or as a monthly contribution to the Sticky Fingers Publishing physical mailout. His first pamphlet is forthcoming with Burley Fisher Community Press in September 2025.

Nina Winder-Lind | @ninawinderlind 
 

Nina Winder-Lind is a Swedish born UK based musician. She recently made her print debut with the self published Röd ska jag leva, a collection of poems which centre on themes of the animal body, the living landscape and the physicality of emotion.

Hesse K. | @cr1sis__actress_ 

Hesse K. is a writer. Her criticism and poetry has appeared in MAP magazine and Montez Radio, and in anthologies by Sticky Fingers Publishing, Toothgrinder, Worms Magazine, and Pilot Press, among others. She lives in London.

George Lynch | @ge0rge.lynch 

George Lynch is a writer. Recent publications of her work include: Oxford Poetry, Fieldnotes Journal, Sticky Fingers Publishing, Datableed Journal. Her work involves performance — she has given performances internationally, most recently Galerie Molitor (Berlin) CCA Glasgow (Glasgow), and Cafe Oto (London), and programmed & produced numerous performance events at The Horse Hospital (London). She was a recipient of the 2023 Fieldnotes Development Grant. She is the founder of The Horse Hospital Collective.

About the exhibition: 

Staffordshire St presents The Wicker Arms. Inspired by a fascination with folk horror, curatorial platforms ha. lf and the icing room come together to transform the space at Staffordshire St into an artist-inspired pub and immersive exhibition.

Incorporating work from 20 artists, The Wicker Arms materially explores ideas around community, through which we refocus narratives of belonging.
 

The Wicker Arms will be the centrepiece of Staffordshire St’s annual Festival of Community 2025: a collaborative programme of workshops, events, exhibitions and drop-ins that will celebrate our neighbourhood and the communities that fill its streets. Exploring notions of community, place and belonging, Staffordshire St will become a locus for playful creativity and celebratory knowledge sharing.

 

Accessibility: There is step-free access to the gallery via the door to the left hand side of the main entrance. There is a wheelchair accessible toilet. The event will be taking place in the exhibition space, which is a large open room with bright lighting and some seating available.
 

Staffordshire St is an independent project space in Peckham, South East London. The venue facilitates arts and cultural events and provides affordable studios for artists, makers and designers. ​

Staffordshire St is not-for-profit and all income is invested into developing our public programme which launched the summer of 2022. The venue was established as an art gallery in 2017, before then it was vacant for many years after a community centre closed. Originally it was built as a Methodist Hall. We intend to support a range of cultural events for the local community.
 

Staffordshire St will build on the established record of these histories, opening up again to the neighbourhood and developing a welcoming interdisciplinary arts space. More information on upcoming events at : info@staffordshirest.com or @staffordshirest