In collaboration with Kwanzaa Collective we welcom Aisling Serrant author of All Ah We is One 25/09/2026 6.30pm @ Drop City Books

Drop City Books Author Party Aisling Serrant Author of All Ah We is One

📅 Date: 25th SEPTEMBER 2026

DOORS - 6.30pm

EVENT START - 7:00pm

📍 Venue: Drop City Books, 74-78 Piccadilly, Hanley, ST1 1HX

⚡️NOTE THIS TICKET DOES NOT INCLUDE A COPY OF THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aisling Serrant is Head of Learning and Engagement at Lowry, Salford, having previously worked as Cultural Producer at Bradford Council and in engagement roles at the London Museum and UNBOXED Festival 2022. Her work focuses on collaboration, co-production and participatory practice.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Caribbean Carnivals have been taking place around the UK since 1959. These joyous celebrations of culture and community began as acts of resistance in the face of enslavement — a defiant stand from communities who refused to lose who they were and where they came from.

Drawing from this rich and radical history, Aisling Serrant explores Carnival through one of its most vibrant and unmissable features: costume. First turned to by former slaves in the Caribbean as an act of reclamation and quiet resistance, with roots in West African and European masquerade alike, the colourful costumes of Carnival weekend remain a vital mode of self-expression, protest, and camaraderie. From Canboulay to Leeds and Notting Hill, the costume makers, wearers, and the communities they attract, embody Carnival in the spirit of an expression used across the Caribbean to signify unity among nations and peoples: all ah we is one.

IN COLLABORATION WITH KWANZAA COLLECTIVE

Kwanzaa Collective UK is a Black artist-led charitable company connecting, supporting and championing Black, Brown and Global Majority creatives in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and the surrounding areas. Using creativity, they raise the visibility and profile of artists, empower young people and inspire Black and Brown people to prioritise their wellbeing.

Kwanzaa Collective curate art and wellbeing programmes that place racially marginalised people at the core of arts, heritage and outdoor spaces as leaders, creatives, artists and audiences. Their programmes educate, entertain and celebrate, building bridges across communities whilst connecting people from different ethnicities, backgrounds and age groups. Their main strands of interest are Artist Empowerment, Young People’s Empowerment, and Health & Wellbeing.

ACCESSIBILITY INFO:

Please get in touch (hello@dropcitybooks.com) if you have any specific access requirements, we will always do our best to accomodate them.

The shop is wheelchair accessible, with a double wide front door.

This event will involve sitting on a chair, with comfort breaks whenever you need them. We encourage standing up and stretching, fidgeting, wiggling around, this isn't school, humans need to move.

The toilets are on the same floor as the venue and are gender neutral. They are not fully wheelchair accesible, we're sorry it's not ideal, but we do have access to our neighbour's wheelchair accesible toilet across the pedestrianised street.

There will be amplified sound at low levels.

Description supplied by the event organiser.