I worked at a festival this weekend, the JOURNEYS FESTIVAL curated by the Art Reach organisation in Leicester from Thursday 9^th to Sunday 12^th October 2025. Officially, 10^th – 12^th. Now, in its thirteenth year, the festival has had various iterations in various cities in the UK, including Manchester, Portsmouth and Leicester, where it is now solely based. The festival is a culmination of various creative and healing activities across different genres including film, theatre, installations, and creative workshops. It is unlike the Re-Action festival, run by the same group, which is more climate-focused, and which I worked at earlier in the year. But let’s not get distracted.

The festival launched on the evening of Thursday 9^th October but was open to the public, and by extension, those of us working the shifts as Ambassadors, on the 10^th. I got to my post at the Cathedral after some misadventures that left me tired from my train trip. Leicester is becoming increasingly notorious for cancelled trains. I did a quick sign-in with the team at the Hay Market, got encouragement from Amelia Silver, Lynn Simmonds, and Lea Kirton of the Art Reach team that all was going to be well. Thus blessed, I then headed to post…yes, the beautifully reworked Cathedral, where Jo was leading my colleagues who were already at work treating guests to our lovely installations.

We had two installations on site, the Sirens: Songs of Sisterhood outside, which welcomed any visitor passing by, and And… Breathe within the Cathedral itself. Curated by the Liminal Creative group as led by Lou, Emma, and Carl, the Sirens attraction was a collection of seven tactile, rock-like sculptures pulsing with colour and voice. The interactive installation was created in collaboration with the Femina Polish Centre for Women. As noted on the Liminal Creative website, “Through sound, movement, and light, Sirens weaves together echoes of the past and hopes for the future, a chorus of belonging that transcends borders, generations, and language.” Standing there, among the ‘rocks’ that cold afternoon felt like eavesdropping on shared histories of women across generations. And this might not be totally out of place since the installation was largely composed of recorded conversations with some migrant Polish women on their experiences. Several visitors bent close to the installations and a few actually knelt down close, as if trying to become a part of that conversation. In that sacred space where. for many years, several people had been interred, it felt like being in the companionship of ancestors long gone. This was definitely art as companionship, steadying and fiercely gentle. I spoke to Lou, Emma, and Carl about their installation and found out that it wasn’t their first rodeo. They have worked on different various projects that put out compelling stories, which one can find information about on their website.

Inside the cathedral, Pif-Paf’s And… Breathe installation of light and sound offered another kind of communion. In the finely lit, meditative space, visitors used their breath to influence light and sound in an environment that offered the comfort of nature – think birds, waves, water and the like. As we joined the visitors to move our hands around, to have lights go in this way and that, there was just something peaceful.

Several people who originally came for the King Richard III tomb tour ended up at our installations, and yes, I am sure it would have been a thrill for them, three for the price of one!

From conversations with other Ambassadors, I later learnt that the festival’s opening day had begun on a thoughtful note, with a panel hosted by shado Magazine in partnership with De Montfort University. The discussion unpacked free speech and journalism in the 21st century and brought together writers, academics, researchers and artists. What struck me, even second-hand, was how grounded the session seemed in lived experience: storytelling as identity, advocacy, and documentation. It sounded like one of those rooms where ideas didn’t just stay on the stage but continued in the corridors afterwards. I checked the Art Reach website later and discovered that speakers at the event included “Erin Cobby and Hannah Robathan from Shado Magazine, poet Ambrose Musiywa, DMU student and researcher Ankara Clarke, and Dr. Hiu Man Chan, Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries (DMU).”

Everywhere in the city centre, there seemed to be traces of the festival, some of our ambassadors, posters or leaflets, conversations, curious wanderers. It was no wonder that at the end of the whole festival we had, by my reckoning, about a thousand people that had attended the various installations across the three days of the festival.

On the second day, I had a smoother journey to Leicester and was positioned throughout the day at our Festival Hub at the Haymarket Shopping Centre where we worked on the Story Jars session, but which I will be calling the ‘Memory Jar’ session, because that is what it came to represent for me. The session was led by Madame Ferdous Hussein and supported by some family assistants alongside the Art Reach Team. In all, the premise for the session, as contained in its official summary, was “about honouring our journeys – whether that’s moving across borders or carrying memories across generations. Everyone’s jar is different, just like our stories.”

The whole idea was to use a jar to build memories formed of familiar objects. Every participant is offered an empty jar and then moves around the table to collate various things that remind them of anything. One of the most touching experiences during the session, for me – and there were several touching moments – was when a child with special needs came in and tried to do the exercise. His excitement, his commitment to getting the things into the jar, was so beautiful to see. He quickly became the light in our room, despite all the bulbs shining around. By the time he was leaving, he stopped to hug me, and asked me to bring it in, as he spread his hands wide then wrapped his arms around me tightly. I didn’t realise when I felt tears dropping from my eyes. I could have held that hug forever. I had to let go at some point and told his father what an amazing son he had. I said several prayers for them and watched them walking away until they were out of my sight. There were many other things in the sessions that had me smiling; the children squealing as they filled their jars after discovering something or the other; Madame Ferdous’s warm personality and the way her family on ground made the experience special for the participants.

It was fun and therapeutic for me, NGL. I got a few things into my jar but had to give bits of them at the end of the day to children who didn’t find enough materials to make theirs. My co-ambassador, Jade, did the same thing, and I think it was lovely. To share in that manner. What struck me throughout was how intentional the festival was about accessibility; free events, wheelchair-friendly spaces, age-inclusive programming.

At some point, my colleague and pal, Kasinathan Keetharna came by and told me about the session where she had been working, the ‘Story Chefs’, presented by Maison Foo. The session combined theatre and food in a colourful and playful exploration that blurred the boundaries between the audience and performers, as if to remind everyone there that sometimes even storytelling can be a communal culinary craft. I traded stories of our own Memory Jar workshop too and ensured she knew that she had missed as good a session as I had some really good food – for the mouth and thought!

Elsewhere that evening, the festival offered laughter too. At The Y Theatre, Counterpoints Arts hosted No Direction Home, where migrant and refugee comedians turned humour into connection. From those who attended, I kept hearing about playful crowd work, spontaneous dancing, and brave storytelling.

Meanwhile, the Phoenix Cinema continued drawing audiences with the Journeys Film Programme. I wasn’t able to attend, but colleagues spoke about screenings such as Flow and Fire at Sea, each introduced with context that deepened the viewing experience. Workshops, conversations and even a sold-out family portrait session preceded some screenings, making the films feel less like isolated art and more like cultural gatherings.

On the third day, I went back to the cathedral and joined the last moments of a service going on. We quickly set up and welcomed several guests to our installations. They were thrilled by the And…Breathe. When things quietened, our team decided to do some collective interactions with the installation. We had fun, took some pictures and made a video too! We had to leave the Cathedral at some point as the Choir had a ministration. It coincided with my break. It turned out there wasn’t much to do after, so I got the chance to move around and support in any way I could.

The Memory Jar workshop was still going on but I couldn’t stay long as it was quite busy. It was around 3:00pm and the Oscar-nominated animated feature film, Persepolis was on at the Phoenix Cinema. The 2007 adult animated biographical drama is a coming-of-age story of a young girl set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The movie, was one among others, including Name Me Lawand, Fire at Sea, Flow, and Gagarine, that were screened at the Phoenix Cinema as part of the festival, which seemed to aim at creating an emotional and intellectual journey across borders. In many cases, these carefully selected films featured discomforting themes that were beautiful in many ways, funny in some instances, and heartbreaking. I found out later that before the screening for the last movie of the festival, Gagarine, there was an introduction by Vinish Pomal, a senior lecturer in Architecture at De Montfort University, that helped to build context into the movie’s narrative. His introduction looked at themes of social housing, urban renewal, and the human impact of redevelopment.

It was soon evening and as happens in the latter months of the year, darkness began to descend upon us, reminding us that the curtains were about to close on a fine festival. The Art Reach Team had proposed a final meet and drink for all of us staff and ambassadors, and I looked forward to it but with the trains in Leicester moving mad with a million cancellations, I had to make the move for the next available one. I walked my friends, Julian and Karin to the Phoenix Cinema where they said they would wait for the drinks, then walked to the train station. Julian joined me soon, exhausted and wanting to go home. Journeys Festival truly over, we boarded different trains after our final goodbyes and journeyed home.

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S. Su’eddie Vershima Agema is a multiple-award-winning writer, editor, cultural advocate, and development practitioner. Among other books, he is the author of Memory and the Call of Water (Winner, Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize 2022 and Runner Up, [NLNG] Nigeria Prize for Literature 2022] and winner, Mandela Day Short Story Prize 2016. He heads SEVHAGE Publishing and its sister charity, SEVHAGE Literary and Development Initiative, as well as African and Black Creatives 4 Development, while convening the annual Benue Book and Arts [International] Festival. He is the Managing Editor of the notable poetry collective, Konya Shamsrumi, and sits on the editorial team of Cons-cio Magazine. He also convenes and administers the SEVHAGE Literary Prizes, a collection of different prizes across the various genres. Su’eddie is a 2018 Chevening Scholar and a 2022 David C. Pollock Scholar.