Transmissions Poetry
Waterfall Arts. Belfast, ME
June 5-12, 2026
in collaboration with Trans Poetics Archive, Out in the Open, Waterfall Arts and Belfast Poetry Festival
Join Transmissions Quilts for Home & Away: a trans text(iles) exhibition in Belfast, ME/Penobscot territory, on view Friday June 5 - June 12 at Waterfall Arts (256 High Street).
Transmissions is a project that hires trans artists to make gift quilts for individually nominated trans people. Quilts have always been used to celebrate life transitions and our project lives in that lineage, and many others. This show is part of our New England tour sharing quilts and additional art from our wonderful northeast artists. Home & Away focuses particularly on the overlap between text (poetry! oral history! story! words!) and textiles (quilts! curtains! book arts! other stuff!).
The weekend of June 5 - 7 holds a variety of opportunities to experience the show, all happening in the Clifford Gallery. Help us kick things off on Friday June 5 with a poetry open mic from 5 - 8pm.
Keeping up with the textile and text threads, self identified trans community members are invited to join interdisciplinary collective @lunilahproject and Transmissions Quilts for a workshop for trans folks on Saturday afternoon (1pm - 4pm) combining collage poetry and embroidery/binding techniques. Participants will learn collage and black-out poetry techniques to draft their own short poem, as well as simple hand-sewn binding and embroidery methods to create a fabric or paper zine with each poem. Make something sweet for someone you love or yourself <3
Folks of any identity may join Sampson Spadafore, theatre artist and poet, and Lou Hoecker, winner of the Trans Poetics Archive 2026 Poetry Anthology Contest for Hand in Hand: A poetry and contact improv workshop from 10 - 1pm on Sunday June 7. Born out of a desire for physical connection and expression, Hand in Hand offers participants a chance to explore movement and words through contact improv and poetry. Sampson and Lou will guide participants through contact improv best practices and exercises. You’ll have a chance to write poetry inspired by Lou’s winning poem, Pink, and offer ways to collaborate with other writers.
Workshop sign ups are at www.WeAreOutintheOpen.org and are offered at no cost. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday – Friday 10am – 5pm and Saturday 11 am – 3pm. This event series and exhibition are a collaboration between @transquilts, @Waterfallarts, @WeAreOutintheOpen @BelfastPoetry Festival and @transpoeticsarchive.
There will be an ADA accessible portable toilet on site, outside not far from the gallery entrance. The Clifford Gallery is on the ground level of Waterfall Arts. Masking is welcome to support community health and safety. If you are sick, please take care by staying home.
Image: Quilt for Geo by Jordan Lister. Photograph by Peter Angus Medlock