Of Earth and Quill is a visionary opera by Helen Epega (The Venus Bushfires) that reimagines how stories survive. Through African percussion, operatic voice and vivid visual worlds, she invites audiences on a multisensory journey of sound, colour and
belonging. The work asks: how do we honour the past while shaping the future?

Helen Epega (The Venus Bushfires), creator of Song Queen: A Pidgin Opera presents Of Earth and Quill, a visionary new opera exploring survival, memory and identity in a world remade. Inspired by echoes of Chinua Achebe and William Shakespeare, the work blends African percussion, operatic voice and poetic multilingual storytelling with projected landscapes and shifting costumes. Helen’s synaesthetic experience of music as colour and shape invites the audience to experience the world as she does, supported by creative captioning and bold design. For her, the opera is both a question and an offering: how do we honour the past as we create the future? For audiences, it becomes an immersive, soul-stirring journey of remembrance, resilience and the power of imagination.