TALETELLER TALISMAN KAN YAMAKAN
A workshop with Jumana Emil Abboud
16 November—21 December 2020
Languages: Arabic or English
Participation fee: 20 EUR
The number of participants is limited to 8 people per group.
There will be two groups, one in English, one in Arabic.
Registration required: please email assistant@temporarygallery.org until 8.11.2020
CCA Temporary Gallery is pleased to announce a participatory workshop led by Jumana E. Abboud as part of the exhibition A Sequence of Events in the Lives of the Dormant, which looks at different types of narratives as emancipatory tools to reclaim community and land that have been ravaged by settler colonialism, imperialism and neoliberal hegemonies. What persist are the stories, long after territories are infringed upon or people displaced. They survive, even if only in fragments or as bleak memories, leaving a record which resurrects a desire to bring back the community and the place it inhabited. When put back together into narrative structures, these remnants of stories, very often referring to traumatic collective and individual experiences, have the potential to give new impulses to political struggles. The difference between the real or historical and the fictional loses any importance here, instead what counts is the futurist potential of the story – its capacity to reimagine and influence the past and the future.
Taleteller Talisman Kan Yamakan
Conceived as an online workshop platform with three weekly gatherings and activities that revolve around and are inspired by folkloric practices; this workshop is envisioned as an open exploration of the wonders and the wanderings of folktales and their inherent connection with the natural landscape.
The artist draws on her relationship with Palestinian Arab folktales to mediate a platform for imagining our very own story interactions. By returning to stories – to storytelling and story-making antidotes – in the form of integrated activities, readings and exchanges, the workshop invites participants to fully engage in the question of memory mapping through creative practice. The artist proposes a collective interaction with stories and their “performativity”, with actions such as walks in the natural landscape, object-making, and other creative conspiracies. The result is that each participant is invited to consider creative translations of his/her own experience of stories.
The workshop will be divided into two groups with three meetings per group. Meetings will take place digitally once a week, starting from Monday 16 November for the first group; and 7th December for the second group. Attendance at all three sessions is obligatory.
Jumana Emil Abboud uses drawing, video, performance and text to navigate themes of memory, loss, and resilience. Her creative practice is inspired by Palestinian oral history, with a focus on folktales and their connection to actual sites within the landscape, and to water sources in particular. Abboud lives and works in Jerusalem and London where she is currently a PhD candidate at Slade School of Art.
Workshop Schedule:
Group 1 (Arabic)
Monday 16 Nov. 9:30am - 12:00pm
Monday 23 Nov. 9:30am - 12:00pm
Monday 30 Nov. 9:30am - 12:00pm
Group 2 (English)
Monday 07 Dec. 9:30am - 12:00pm
Monday 14 Dec. 9:30am - 12:00pm
Monday 21 Dec. 9:30am - 12:00pm
Images
Jumana Emil Abboud, “A handless maiden in the mountainous landscape” (I Feel Nothing companion), acrylic, gouache, pastel on paper, 63 x 73 cm, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Lara Khaldi
