CANCELLED: Exploring Friendship in Creative Projects

Please note that due to unforeseen circumstances, this workshop has been CANCELLED.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Gab and Poh first met over 10 years ago in Ulaanbaatar and formed a friendship that would continue to grow and deepen through the times spent together and from afar, through major life experiences and always with an appreciation of each other’s field of work despite how different it seemed. They never could have imagined that one day not only would their different worlds of work cross paths but that they would also embark on a creative project together. Gab (film maker) and Poh (narrative therapist) collaborated on a feature film, Island of the Hungry Ghosts, that is currently in distribution worldwide (www.islandofthehungryshosts.com) and will be released in UK cinemas in January 2019.

After five years of working closely together Gab and Poh are bringing together their reflections and learnings into a one day immersive workshop to share and explore more closely the intricacies of friendship throughout the process of a creative project.

They are curious to investigate friendship as a foundation from which a working relationship can emerge. They are interested in the ethics, values and the practical day-to-day dance of power and ever adjusting positions towards one another that enabled the friendship to withstand the diverse and evolving process and the difficulties of the project. They are wondering about what friendship contributes to the project and in turn how the project shapes the friendship. In the end as the project takes on a life of its own, what becomes of the friendship?

The workshop will be offered as an interactive talk drawing on Gab and Poh’s experience whilst also including experiential exercises to invite participants to consider their own experiences or intentions for combining friendship in creative or other professional collaborations.

This event is part of When women gather … a public programme of events connected to Grace Gelder‘s photography exhibition at Conway Hall which has been curated with Marianne Mulvey. The exhibition runs from November 9th to January 31st.

For more info on the exhibition launch and event programme please go to

www.gracegelder.co.uk/when-women-gather

“…friendship will be the soil from which a new politics will emerge…” (Ivan Illich)

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We are committed to promoting inclusive practice at Conway Hall. Due to the constraints of our building, the Library is not currently accessible to wheelchair users or those with limited mobility, we are happy to discuss with you how we can make the contents and materials accessible to you. We carefully monitor which events are held in the Library, and will use your comments to enable us to develop ways to ensure that everyone should be able to attend events in the future.

Gabrielle Brady is an Australian filmmaker who currently resides part time in Berlin. For the past ten years Gabrielle has lived between the Australian central desert, Mongolia, Indonesia, Cuba, Mexico and Europe.

Gabrielle has recently completed her first feature length film Island of the Hungry Ghosts.  The film has won several awards including ; Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film festival 2018, the Buyens-Chagoll Award at Visions du Réel 2018, and the Best Documentary film award at the Valetta film festival Malta. The film is being shown in international competitions including; Doc-Aviv Israel, Valetta film festival Malta, Edinburgh Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival.

Gabrielle’s short film The Island was launched on the Guardian Documentary program and premiered at the Sheffield film festival 2017. The film won best short film at the Ânûû-rû âboro festival in New Caledonia. Gabrielle studied Documentary Direction at the International Film school in Cuba (EICTV) where she made several short films (BROKEN PANTS, MILAGRO, FALL).

Poh Lin Lee is an Australian social worker who has been providing therapy to individuals, families and communities for the 14 years across a number of countries and contexts (Australia, Mongolia, Benin, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Palestine, Turkey, Ukraine Germany, Belgium, Greece, UK, Spain) including providing torture and trauma counselling services on Christmas Island. For the past five years Poh Lin had been working with dear friend and film maker Gabrielle Brady on The Island (short) and Island of the Hungry Ghosts (feature).

In therapeutic work Poh Lin is dedicated to creatively co-researching alternative practices in response to trauma, injustice and the operations of power that render people, families and communities limited in their possibilities for practices of life and expressions that reflect their values and commitments. Poh Lin is curious to cross borders between different fields of practice and mediums of storytelling in an attempt to expand opportunities for linking individual experience to wider context and contributing to conversations that hold social action at the heart.

In film workshops and consultation Poh Lin is interested in offering specific exercises drawing from her knowledge of post-structuralist therapy (narrative and sandplay) to support film makers in articulating their visions in ways that can be shared with clarity and can withstand the various challenges that arise in the process of transforming ideas and experience into films that shine light on topics and themes in unique, ethical and influential ways. Poh Lin currently works freelance across a number of different countries as a trainer, supervisor, counsellor and film consultant.