Bringing together the poetry of Katie O’ Pray, Meej Douglas, and Oluwaseun Olayiwola – contemporary voices whose work similarly grapples with the body’s limitations, transformations, and expressive potential – So, So, So: A poetry night, is a live reading event celebrating Galli’s exploration of corporeality in her solo exhibition, So, So, So.
Galli’s figures are fragmented yet forceful, resisting fixed identity and pushing against constraint. In response, the invited poets engage with the theme of bodily physicality, offering a unique linguistic counterpoint to the visual world of the exhibition. Through rhythm, form, and voice, their readings create new layers of meaning, amplifying Galli’s ideas and inviting audiences to build deeper, more personal connections with the work.
Curated by Nishi Chodimella, Ola Kowalewska and Reaia Parkes (Goldsmiths MFA Curating)
Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola is a poet, critic, choreographer and performer based in London. His creative and critical work has been published in: the Guardian, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Oxford Poetry, the Telegraph, the TLS and elsewhere. His choreographic work has been presented at the V&A, The Place, The Central School of Ballet, and Studio Voltaire. He’s been commissioned by Royal Society of Literature, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Southwark Council, and Studio 3 Arts. Seun has an MFA in Choreography from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he was a Fulbright Scholar in 2018-2019. He recently began lecturing in dance in the Kingston School of Art. Seun is a member of the inaugural Rose Choreographic School at Sadler’s Wells.
Katie O’Pray is a poet and creative facilitator. Their ‘devastating’ debut collection APRICOT was published by Out-Spoken Press in 2022 – concerned with devising a vocabulary for bodily violences, particularly those of gender, of eating disorders, of addiction, of chronic illness, of remembering. Their work has been associated with a variety of prizes, institutions and publications, including the National Poetry Competition, the Manchester Writing Competition, the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, The Poetry Review, fourteen poems and the Barbican Centre, among others.
Meej Douglas (b. 2000) works with film, text, and sound. Meej holds an BA in photography from Leeds Arts University, and a MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins. Meej is a 2025 recipient of Acme Early Career Award, and 2023 recipient of the Mona Hatoum Bursary Award.
The locus to Douglas’ practice is a motivation to critique the categorising, confessional conventions of clinical language in the psychiatric arena. Spawning via the artist’s rhizomatic cut-up writing, Douglas’ practice exists in constant autosarcophagy – where repetition and contradiction unveil the ineffable; the processual self-cannibalising and regenerating of the text’s contents produces or uncovers (often nonsensical) meaning.
Bringing together the poetry of Katie O’ Pray, Meej Douglas, and Oluwaseun Olayiwola – contemporary voices whose work similarly grapples with the body’s limitations, transformations, and expressive potential – So, So, So: A poetry night, is a live reading event celebrating Galli’s exploration of corporeality in her solo exhibition, So, So, So.
Galli’s figures are fragmented yet forceful, resisting fixed identity and pushing against constraint. In response, the invited poets engage with the theme of bodily physicality, offering a unique linguistic counterpoint to the visual world of the exhibition. Through rhythm, form, and voice, their readings create new layers of meaning, amplifying Galli’s ideas and inviting audiences to build deeper, more personal connections with the work.
Curated by Nishi Chodimella, Ola Kowalewska and Reaia Parkes (Goldsmiths MFA Curating)
Doors open 7pm (Exhibition opens for viewing until 7.20pm)
Poetry Reading – 7.20-8.30pm
BIOGRAPHIES:
Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola is a poet, critic, choreographer and performer based in London. His creative and critical work has been published in: the Guardian, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Oxford Poetry, the Telegraph, the TLS and elsewhere. His choreographic work has been presented at the V&A, The Place, The Central School of Ballet, and Studio Voltaire. He’s been commissioned by Royal Society of Literature, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Southwark Council, and Studio 3 Arts. Seun has an MFA in Choreography from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where he was a Fulbright Scholar in 2018-2019. He recently began lecturing in dance in the Kingston School of Art. Seun is a member of the inaugural Rose Choreographic School at Sadler’s Wells.
Katie O’Pray is a poet and creative facilitator. Their ‘devastating’ debut collection APRICOT was published by Out-Spoken Press in 2022 – concerned with devising a vocabulary for bodily violences, particularly those of gender, of eating disorders, of addiction, of chronic illness, of remembering. Their work has been associated with a variety of prizes, institutions and publications, including the National Poetry Competition, the Manchester Writing Competition, the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, The Poetry Review, fourteen poems and the Barbican Centre, among others.
Meej Douglas (b. 2000) works with film, text, and sound. Meej holds an BA in photography from Leeds Arts University, and a MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins. Meej is a 2025 recipient of Acme Early Career Award, and 2023 recipient of the Mona Hatoum Bursary Award.
The locus to Douglas’ practice is a motivation to critique the categorising, confessional conventions of clinical language in the psychiatric arena. Spawning via the artist’s rhizomatic cut-up writing, Douglas’ practice exists in constant autosarcophagy – where repetition and contradiction unveil the ineffable; the processual self-cannibalising and regenerating of the text’s contents produces or uncovers (often nonsensical) meaning.
Read Less...
