Our BAME students officer Janine is hosting a competition to help you get creative during the University festive break.
Competition
We're asking you to submit your best piece of creative artwork (it could be a drawing or paint, poems/spoken word, speeches - written or audio, or even a video) based on your own cultural experiences. It could be a positive look upon your traditions, customs, or something that showcases an aspect of your culture, it could also be a piece of art based on a negative lived experience, i.e. racism.
You'll be able to anonymously upload your content to our entry survey, and students will vote on the best piece of artwork submitted with prizes up for grabs for the winners.
The objective of Unmask the Soul is to be interactive, to celebrate the many different cultures that make up our student body here at University of Leicester, and to connect students and staff from different cultures.
To enter, you'll need to provide:
- A 20 word blurb explaining your artwork
- Your student email address, year of study, and course (although this will not be published)
- An audio, visual, or photographic piece of artwork
Winners will be judged using the following methods:
- Written winners (poetry or stories) will be judged by the panel consisting of SU Marketing & our BAME Officer.
- Audio/visual creative winners will be judged by a poll, you can vote below.
* ENTRIES ARE NOW CLOSED *
Congratulations to our winners!
Erfan Ramezanzadeh (artist)
Muzammil Khomusi (poet)
Entries
1. (L) I want natural hair like short afros to be associated with the beautiful aesthetics of flowers and nature & (R) How unchecked internalized racism can control you
2. Torn by two worlds: persevering beyond the stigma of two different cultures.
. 
3. In this photograph, the connection between a grandmother and her grandchild is symbolised through the traditional mehndi on their hands.
4. WRITTEN ENTRY: 'I’m made from’ answers the question “who am I” by reflecting on the experiences that made me, me.
I'm made from...
I'm made from bus tickets, cereal bars and
painkillers.
I'm made from unspoken emotions as
though butterflies don't emerge from
cocoons but remain as caterpillars.
I'm made from hate, tears and pain.
I'm made from primary-school kept promises
but my efforts to fulfil them have been in vain.
I'm made from Asian cuisine, spices and treats.
I'm made from crisis, catastrophe and Middle Eastern heat.
I'm made from discipline, I wasn't spared the rod
when I grew up.
See I chose to be unhappy and live in reality
because I was beaten to a point where happiness
is what I threw up.
I'm made from wet tarmac, cold winds and
playing basketball with my mates.
I'm made from passive smoke, marijuana vapours,
store-brought JD tracksuits. You see I was raised on a council estate
where cries weren't heard but a deafening vacuum.
Knife crimes have been campaigned for; there
were days where I slept unfed.
Drove under pressure; hopped up on meds,
crashed in my consciousness, I was
left for dead on a hospital bed.
I'm made from cataclysmic chromosomes;
an unfinished genetic jigsaw.
I'm made from shells, not of oysters but
guns which fire pearls into the satin
wrapped saline solutions of victims of
gun violence.
I'm made from hating love, loving hate;
the cold of the cosmos and a time beyond ages.
Disheartened, disappointed in a city that never changes.
Recycling feelings in the compost, I'm
made from aspirations and dreams, out of
my reach, no need to preach, selfishness
and greed.
I'm made from political views;
see my parents sacrificed everything for me,
as they say for the sake of.
But I'm yet to put pen to paper and show
this world what I'm made of.
5. BLM Embroidered
6. WRITTEN ENTRY - I realised that I don’t know much about the cultures of my family. This poem is me exploring this.
Two Islands
Adrift, on oceans made from lives long past,
From tales that hide the terrors in the night,
Alone, I have no oar, I have no mast,
The stars are veiled, the skies are void of light.
I search to find the place where I should go,
Where just for once I feel I can be more,
Perhaps through where I come from, I can know,
Upon a distant, once familiar shore.
Upon that shore my father once would stand,
In blackened ash from fires spat from rock,
Yet all I see are footprints in the sand,
But not to guide, instead they stay to mock.
Among the photos, whispers of what was,
A puppet from banana leaf lies there,
I cannot understand them, all because,
These trinkets don’t replace someone who’d care.
My teeth unfiled, am I to be a beast?
Is that what makes me wish to rend the sky?
To mourn the empty journey from the east,
Which ending makes the light then slowly die?
My mother’s parents both will show no door,
For grass and stone and earth make only walls,
So, who is left for me to ask for more?
No answer comes from letters, texts, or calls.
Yet if I cast aside all thoughts of doubt,
I’ll build a future from my tales instead,
This storm of raw emotion, brave it out,
To fill the empty space left in my head.
At times we may lost, but not for long,
There somewhere out there where we can belong.
7. Shahbanu, representing our heritage through the beauty of our appearances.
