Common Ground: Exploring faith and identity through poetry

Returning for another year, Common Ground is an inter-faith spoken word program of workshops and performances by young people exploring the role faith and identity play in our everyday lives.

Developed by Multicultural Arts Victoria in collaboration with artists originating from Sikh and Muslim communities, Common Ground is a creative leadership project that aims to celebrate the voice in all its different forms. It is uniquely multilingual and utilises poetry, spoken word, sound and film to build connections and understanding between young people of diverse faiths and cultures within Melbourne.

Since its launch in 2013, Common Ground has sought to create a space for young people from two faiths that are often religiously and racially vilified — Sikhism and Islam — to come together and use spoken word and poetry as a medium for dialogue, friendship and interaction. Common Ground’s capacity to represent diverse cultures, faiths and identities through creativity offer young people a wealth of possibilities and is an opportunity to create interfaith dialogue around shared experiences to promote cultural cohesion and understanding.

No experience is required at all for participants. Part of the experience is about meeting new people, learning about their background and for beginners to pick up some poetry performance skills and learning how to better express yourselves in different ways.

This year, Common Ground will have three different sessions across Melbourne. The first one in Thomastown has already commenced and will run from July 17 to September 8. The second is a three week workshop commencing on August 31 and finishing on September 14 and will take place in Shepparton. The third session is a six week workshop from September 10 to October 15 in St Albans.

Expression of interests for all workshops are now open and you can book your tickets here.