The Music Performance Unit is pleased to collaborate with UNSW’s SEXtember festival, with this year’s focus being relationships and self empowerment. Behind the scenes we have been getting ready, working closely with four student poets, composer Sophia Christopher, and writer and poet Natalia Rachel to produce a joint multimedia piece entitled Salty Sweet. Each student has also written their own poem that will feature in the festival.

The Living Poetry Project grew from an idea of placing human relationships at the heart of our art. Four students delved into their lived experience, took inspiration from their own story and relationships to compose a stand-alone poem.

This project included participation in three writing workshops led by Natalia Rachel and a recording session in UNSW Media Studio for each student poet to record their own work. The five poems will be showcased in September via an installation on campus and online here, sitting alongside UNSW's Untold Stories series. In each workshop the group discussed relationships and the many forms they come in. Using life to inspire art, the students created poetry based on both fictional and non-fictional relationships, honing insight to inform the artistic outcome of the project. Through small acts of relational intelligence, and leaning into compassion, empathy and kindness, we are able to create a more connected world for each of us.

We hope you will engage with us through this series of poems.

Listen, watch and immerse yourself in living poetry.