African Activities

15/10/2026

15/10/2026

Introducing Anne Charbel

What if some of our most precious family histories aren't preserved in books or photographs, but in the everyday rituals passed from one generation to the next?

For Bournemouth-based writer, actor and installation artist Anne Charbel, storytelling takes many forms.

A founding member of the Boscombe Radicle Arts Collective (BRAC), Anne's creative practice spans performance, poetry and visual art. She has performed with the Global Majority poetry collective Kainaat and was recently selected as a 2026–27 PROPEL Associate with Mayflower, supporting the development of her work in theatre and performance.

For Who Tells Our Stories?, Anne brings us into a deeply personal space with Teta's Mouneh, an installation inspired by her grandmother's pantry and her family's connections to a village in Mount Lebanon.

Mouneh is the Lebanese tradition of preparing and preserving seasonal foods, a practice that carries knowledge, memory and the rhythms of family life through generations.

Through this installation, Anne invites us to consider the stories held within everyday objects and domestic rituals.

The recipes remembered. The knowledge shared. The traditions carried from one home to another, sometimes across continents and generations.

It's a beautiful reminder that history doesn't only belong to those whose names appear in books. It also lives in kitchens, in the hands of our mothers and grandmothers, and in the small acts of care through which culture survives.

Anne's contribution sits at the heart of one of our exhibition's central questions: Who gets to tell our stories, and how do we keep them alive?

We'd love you to visit CODA and discover Teta's Mouneh for yourself.

📍 Who Tells Our Stories?
CODA Gallery, New Milton
2–31 October 2026
10am–4pm

Part of The Nightjar Project by African Activities CIC.

14/10/2026

Today we were in London, sharing Adinkra symbols, their meanings and the pleasure of creating something together.

Thank you to everyone who has welcomed African Activities and brought their curiosity and creativity. More drumming, art, storytelling and dance ahead!

14/10/2026

Introducing Sharon James

How do we preserve the stories, histories and experiences that might otherwise be forgotten?

For Swanage-based artist Sharon James, art is deeply personal, but the questions it raises reach far beyond her own life.

Working across painting, drawing and printmaking, Sharon explores Black British identity, motherhood, heritage and the complexities of belonging in predominantly white rural communities.

Her autobiographical work moves between the intimate experiences of family life and the wider histories that shape our understanding of who we are.

Much of her creative practice is driven by a desire to leave a legacy for her children, recording experiences and perspectives that have too often been absent from representations of Black British life.

But Sharon's contribution to the arts extends beyond her own work.

As a member of the Boscombe Radicle Arts Collective (BRAC) and curator of We Rise at Lighthouse Poole in 2025, she has helped create opportunities for Global Majority artists to be seen, celebrated and connected within Dorset's cultural landscape.

This October, Sharon is also presenting The Past is Present — Symbols We Carry at Lighthouse Poole, a powerful exploration of Black British history, heritage, memory and identity through visual art, film, writing and African textiles.

We're delighted to have Sharon's work included in Who Tells Our Stories?, where her creative practice feels especially resonant with the exhibition's central questions about identity, representation and who gets to shape the stories we leave behind.

We warmly invite you to discover her contribution at CODA and explore her wider practice at Lighthouse Poole. Two exhibitions, two opportunities to engage with an artist whose work asks us to consider how the past continues to shape our present.

📍 Who Tells Our Stories?
CODA Gallery, New Milton
2–31 October 2026 | 10am–4pm

Part of The Nightjar Project by African Activities CIC.

📍 The Past is Present — Symbols We Carry
Lighthouse Poole
6–31 October 2026 | Free entry

Discover more of Sharon's work:


www.sharonjamesartist.com

13/10/2026

Introducing Adilson Naueji

How often do we look at the people around us without ever really seeing them?

Originally from Angola and now based in Bournemouth, Adilson Naueji is a self-taught painter whose work celebrates the faces, histories and everyday stories of the people who make up our communities.

Working primarily in oils and acrylics, Adilson uses portraiture to look beyond appearances, exploring the individual lives and experiences that are so easily overlooked.

His passion for community storytelling was at the heart of his solo exhibition Boscombe Beyond Your Eyes, a celebration of the people and places that give Boscombe its character, challenging familiar assumptions about the area and inviting visitors to see it differently.

A member of BRAC, the Boscombe Radicle Arts Collective, Adilson is also part of a growing network of Global Majority artists working to make Dorset's creative landscape more representative of the communities who live here.

His approach to art feels particularly at home in Who Tells Our Stories?, an exhibition asking us to think about who gets to represent our communities, whose experiences are made visible and what happens when we take ownership of our own narratives.

Come and discover Adilson's contribution alongside the work of our other wonderful artists.

📍 Who Tells Our Stories?
CODA Gallery, New Milton
2–31 October 2026
10am–4pm

Part of The Nightjar Project by African Activities CIC.

Discover more of Adilson's work:

12/10/2026

Introducing Steve Béga

What happens when the stories we inherit about where we come from begin to unravel?

Born and raised in Southampton, Steve is a multidisciplinary creative working across photography, public art, moving image and design. His work often explores the relationship between people and place, encouraging us to look again at the environments we inhabit and the connections we make with them.

As a proud new member of , Steve continues to explore creativity as a way of bringing people and communities together.

For Who Tells Our Stories?, Steve turns that curiosity towards his own family history.

With ancestral connections that may stretch across Mauritius, India, France and beyond, Steve has been questioning the stories passed down through generations, and what happens when we discover that the histories we grew up believing might be incomplete.

His contribution asks us to think about heritage, identity and the assumptions we make about where people belong.

In Steve's own words:

"My heritage is unclear. But I am human. Have we forgotten?"

We'd love you to come and discover how Steve has chosen to explore these questions through his work.

📍 Who Tells Our Stories?
CODA Gallery, New Milton
2–31 October 2026
10am–4pm

Part of The Nightjar Project by African Activities CIC.

Discover more of Steve's work:
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09/10/2026

The Nightjar Family Day at CODA Music and Arts Trust

Join us and the New Forest National Park Authority at CODA tomorrow for a day of creative, hands-on family activities inspired by the Nightjar bird, who travels between West African and the UK each year.

Discover how to protect Nightjars and the heathland habitats they depend on, explore their remarkable journey and make your own recycled Nightjar to take home.

All while visiting our art exhibition in the CODA gallery... Who Tells Our Stories?

Saturday 10th October
10am - 4pm
, Chewton Farm Road,
Walkford, Christchurch, BH23 5QL

Informal drop-in activities throughout the day.
Free to attend

Come and make, explore, discover and follow the Nightjar's journey through both art and conservation.

29/09/2026

Who Tells Our Stories? opens at Coda Gallery this October.⁠
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Part of The Nightjar Project, this exhibition brings together work by Global Majority artists across photography, sculpture, textiles, puppetry, fine art, poetry and more.⁠
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The exhibition grew from two questions:⁠
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Who tells our stories?⁠
What does belonging mean to you?⁠
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The artists have answered in very different ways, exploring identity, heritage, migration, memory, place, belonging and the right to shape the stories told about ourselves and our communities.⁠
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📍 Coda Gallery, New Milton⁠
📅 2–31 October 2026⁠
🕙 10am–4pm⁠
🎟️ Free — no booking required⁠
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Come and spend some time with the work, encounter voices and perspectives you may not usually meet, and join us in thinking about who gets to tell the stories that shape how we see ourselves and one another.

26/09/2026

Here she is. Our Nightjar.⁠
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All summer, while the nightjars were in the New Forest, people here shared cloth, symbols and stories with us. Now they are part of the wings that help our Nightjar fly.⁠
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The nightjars are making their way back to West and Central Africa. As they leave, our Nightjar begins her dance.⁠
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The nightjar’s journey is part of the life of this Forest. The people who helped shape our Nightjar, with their many lives and histories, are part of it too. Seeing her here feels like seeing those stories take their place.⁠
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Thank you to for creating her with such care and artistry, and to for bringing her to life in performance. Thank you to our Youth Board, The United Voices of African Associations (the team behind ), .ukofficial, , and everyone who contributed to her wings.⁠
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Thank you to , and for making this possible.⁠
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She is beautiful. We can’t wait for you to meet her.⁠
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Photographs by , with photography support from Craig.⁠
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Odo Nnyew Fie Kwan

25/09/2026

At the British Science Festival, we joined to share Nightjar: Making the Heath a Home.

Visitors explored Adinkra symbols through printmaking and turned used milk bottles into birds. Making together opened up conversations about the wildlife of the heath, reuse, and what it means to make a place home.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, and to for making everything run so smoothly and making us feel so at home.