Taking place on 7 November, the event series will use craft and creative writing to make complex migration law more accessible and encourage people to think about the experiences of those crossing borders.
The activities will focus particularly on the UK-France Small Boats Treaty, examining not only what migration law says but the language it uses and how legal decisions can affect people’s lives.
The events will connect with the National Maritime Museum’s migrant-centred Crossings exhibition, featuring the work of Shorsh Saleh alongside many others, and engage with responses to Mass Observation’s 2026 Seeking Asylum project, which gathered people’s thoughts and experiences relating to asylum.
Participants of all ages will be able to take part in Boats of Being Human, a 30-minute drop-in activity in which they create a simple boat inspired by migrant journeys, legal texts, diary extracts and artworks from the exhibition.
Participants will also use words and phrases from the Small Boats Treaty to create their own poems and pieces of word play about migration, borders and the law.
There will also be a workshop to write flash fiction combining personal experiences of the sea with responses to migrant testimony, photographs and the exhibition.
The project is coordinated by Professor Emily Grabham, of Loughborough Law, and Professor Jennifer Cooke, of Loughborough English, a poet and academic specialising in contemporary literature and theories of care.
Professor Grabham said: “Through creativity rather than legal lectures, organisers hope participants will leave with a better understanding of the power and limits of migration law, the experiences behind the political debate, and new ways of thinking about borders, journeys and belonging.”
The activities have grown out of Power, Justice & Imagination, a collaboration hosted by the Law & Humanities Hub at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, which explores how creative writing and legal research can be brought together to examine social justice.
Visit the Being Human website for more information.
ENDS