This event is a mending, patching and sewing workshop, with the opportunity for alterations by Martin. Guests bring their own garments to be armoured or adorned in cultural symbols, as we reclaim our material ties to our varying heritage.

The workshop is about both a material repair, but also a cultural repair – taking time to adorn one’s garments with cultural symbols, patterns, or any signs of heritage and spiritual practice, in the hopes of celebrating and spending time with those legacies. It offers an opportunity for people to come together to make, whilst reflecting on and sharing experiences/ knowledge of those cultural symbols.

The event takes place on Halloween, another reason to honour reclamation, in considering the ways in which we may mask or unmask our identities.

Before the session, participants will be provided with a reflective prompt to share some insights into a part of their culture they’d like to share or discuss, as well as an encouraged reading list that provides a wider understanding of the literature surrounding race, assimilation, material cultures and community building.

Event Details:

Date: 31/10/2026
Time: 12:00–16:00 (16:00–18:00 additional open discussion time after the session)
Price: £10
Location: Oxford House, Cafe

Additional Notes
Potential readings include: The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois (1), Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde (2) There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack by Paul Gilroy (3) Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch (4)

We would like to pose the following questions to consider before workshop attendance:

– What is a symbol – cultural, individual or otherwise, that you’d like to spend time with at the session. ( Where possible – please bring a photo, the symbol itself or ideas to share)

– When thinking about cultural repair, what would you like to reconnect or reconcile with, through the workshops methods of material repair – mending, patching and sewing.

– Alongside armouring (so adding protection) this workshop is equally about adornment (so celebrating and showing gratitude for self and community), what is a symbol, idea or experience that speaks to those joys?