How do we communicate with someone whose language, culture, history — or even planet — we do not share?
Apply by 13 November to take part in this poetry workshop for young people aged 16–24. Led by writer and artist Jeremy Pak Nelson, the workshop is designed for participants who have lived experience of multiple cultures.
For an Unknown Receiver responds to the work of leading contemporary Chinese artist Xu Bing and his interest in language, communication and the possibilities of artistic exchange. Taking his SCA-1 satellite project as a point of departure, the workshop invites us to think about what happens to meaning when it moves between people, places, languages and perspectives.
We often talk about what is ‘lost in translation,’ but what might emerge from that loss? How does a message change when it is passed between different people, translated into another language or medium, removed from its original context, or encountered from an unfamiliar perspective? The workshop will explore translation in its broadest sense — between cultures, between generations, between memories and words, between humans and technology, and between Earth and space.
Poetry offers a particularly open space for this exploration. Through creative writing exercises and discussions, participants will consider how meaning can be transformed or reinvented as it travels. They will be encouraged to experiment with different techniques, including erasures, collaborations, and borrowed forms. The workshop will imagine writing for an unknown or distant receiver whose language, context or perspective cannot be fully known.
The workshop will support participants to develop their ideas into poems responding to these themes. No previous writing experience is necessary to take part
Applications are now open until Friday, 13 November. To apply, please complete the form [here].
This project is supported by the British Council.
Jeremy Pak Nelson is a writer and artist from Hong Kong, based in Manchester. He is a Multilingual City Poet for Manchester City of Literature and the winner of the 2026 Mairtín Crawford Award for Poetry. His work has appeared in Magma, Interpret and Small Wonders, among others, and his pamphlet of the city is forthcoming from Verve Poetry Press. He was writer-in-residence at UK Space Conference 2025 and a participant in the Poets of Colour Incubator. He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His interests include outdated methods of putting words on paper, folk fiddle and the game of Go.