Nahla Ink Online Journal

About the project: Kalila wa Dimna: Ancient Tales for Troubled Times, art exhibition and public programme, is a collaboration between academic researchers, artists, curators, and community organisations. The project is inspired by the global journeys of an ancient collection of moral fables across time and place, language, religion and culture.

Known in Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna, the fables have a long and complex global history. Over the centuries they have been translated into more than 40 languages and read and re-interpreted almost continuously by different audiences. Kalila wa Dimna uses storytelling to understand the world and other people, revealing the messy complexity of life, the multiplicity of perspectives and voices that comprise it, and the fact that there exists not one world or truth, but many, and unequal at that.

Kalila wa Dimna: Ancient Tales for Troubled Times focuses on one chapter from the book called the ‘Tale of the Four Friends’ – a story about looking beyond perceived differences and working together to overcome adversity and build a sense of community and home. In a live exhibition and events series taking place from 12 May to 11 June 2022 at the P21 Gallery, experienced and emerging artists and community arts organisations become hakawatis or ‘tellers of tales’ and reinterpret the ‘Tale of the Four Friends’ for contemporary audiences through their own unique perspectives, resulting in a collection of mixed-media works addressing both universal and highly personal issues – including identity, community, migration, and intercultural relations. 

Kalila wa Dimna’s global transmission exemplifies how culture is not fixed or static but rather in perpetual motion and created through contact and exchange between different civilisations. Ancient Tales for Troubled Times sheds light on the undeniable influence of Eastern cultures and languages on Western societies. Using a decolonizing lens, our hakawatis question who gets to tell stories and therefore who benefits from their transformative and generative potential. The project also explores the important role that stories have played in people’s experiences of migration, in building new communities, and in experiencing the world through different languages.

By approaching storytelling through various artistic mediums, the project aims to widen access to and engagement with the arts within diverse and often marginalised communities while promoting cross-cultural understanding.

For more: https://www.kalilawadimnaexhibit.com/

A Solo Exhibition of Amado Alfadni curated by Najlaa El-Ageli

Born in 1976 in Cairo, Amado Alfadni’s childhood was composed of two distinct environments: the Cairene Street and the Sudanese home. The relationship and the tension between these two cultures strongly influenced his views, making him question the subject of identity with its related rhetoric, as well as the variables of nation and ethnicity in his work. By working with forgotten historical events and referring to the current state of things, he challenges the power dynamics between the individual and authority on both the social and political levels. He gives a voice to the ethnic minority, with a focus on research and documentation of ignored happenings.

This solo highlights Alfadni’s deep research-based investigations into the forgotten silenced histories of the Sudan. He utilizes postcards, photographs and oral archives in order to reveal the complex relationship between colonialism and Black Africa, as well as the intermingled histories of Black Africa, Egypt and North Africa.

For more: https://www.sulger-buel-gallery.com/exhibitions/44-alternative-museum-of-the-sudan-a-solo-exhibition-of-amado-alfadni-curated-by/

Celebrating the release of a collection of essays prescribed by voices from the Middle East, South Asia, and the diaspora. 

Haramacy amplifies under-represented voices. Tackling topics previously left unspoken, this anthology  offers a space for writers to explore ideas that mainstream organisations overlook. Focusing on the  experiences of 12 Middle Eastern and South Asian writers, the essays explore visibility, invisibility, love,  strength and race, painting a picture of what it means to feel fractured – both in the UK and back home. 

The title, Haramacy, is an amalgamation of the Arabic word ‘haram’, meaning indecent or forbidden,  and the English word ‘pharmacy’, implying a safe, trustworthy space that prescribes the antidote to  ailments caused by intersectional, social issues. 

The book features contributions by novelists, journalists, and artists including Aina J Khan, Ammar Kalia,  Cyrine Sinti, Joe Zadeh, Kieran Yates, Nasri Atallah, Nouf Alhimiary, Saleem Haddad and Sanjana  Varghese, as well as essays by editors Dhruva Balram, Tara Joshi, and Zahed Sultan. 

To celebrate the release of Haramacy, we’ll be hosting an atypical evening that includes a Q&A with the  editors, speed dating with the authors, short film screenings, pop up performances, and food & drinks  by Toum & Tahini to bring you closer to the people that made this book possible from our shared  communities.  

About the Organizer 

COMMUN is a combined arts organisation with a focus on community building with emerging and mid career Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) voices. Through learning tools, digital media, and  IRL events, COMMUN creates opportunities for BIPOC voices to collaborate and create works to achieve  a greater understanding for ‘othered’ people in our society.  

For more:

About the project: Kalila wa Dimna: Ancient Tales for Troubled Times, art exhibition and public programme, is a collaboration between academic researchers, artists, curators, and community organisations. The project is inspired by the global journeys of an ancient collection of moral fables across time and place, language, religion and culture.

Known in Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna, the fables have a long and complex global history. Over the centuries they have been translated into more than 40 languages and read and re-interpreted almost continuously by different audiences. Kalila wa Dimna uses storytelling to understand the world and other people, revealing the messy complexity of life, the multiplicity of perspectives and voices that comprise it, and the fact that there exists not one world or truth, but many, and unequal at that.

Kalila wa Dimna: Ancient Tales for Troubled Times focuses on one chapter from the book called the ‘Tale of the Four Friends’ – a story about looking beyond perceived differences and working together to overcome adversity and build a sense of community and home. In a live exhibition and events series taking place from 12 May to 11 June 2022 at the P21 Gallery, experienced and emerging artists and community arts organisations become hakawatis or ‘tellers of tales’ and reinterpret the ‘Tale of the Four Friends’ for contemporary audiences through their own unique perspectives, resulting in a collection of mixed-media works addressing both universal and highly personal issues – including identity, community, migration, and intercultural relations. 

Kalila wa Dimna’s global transmission exemplifies how culture is not fixed or static but rather in perpetual motion and created through contact and exchange between different civilisations. Ancient Tales for Troubled Times sheds light on the undeniable influence of Eastern cultures and languages on Western societies. Using a decolonizing lens, our hakawatis question who gets to tell stories and therefore who benefits from their transformative and generative potential. The project also explores the important role that stories have played in people’s experiences of migration, in building new communities, and in experiencing the world through different languages.

By approaching storytelling through various artistic mediums, the project aims to widen access to and engagement with the arts within diverse and often marginalised communities while promoting cross-cultural understanding.

For more: https://www.kalilawadimnaexhibit.com/

A Solo Exhibition of Amado Alfadni curated by Najlaa El-Ageli

Born in 1976 in Cairo, Amado Alfadni’s childhood was composed of two distinct environments: the Cairene Street and the Sudanese home. The relationship and the tension between these two cultures strongly influenced his views, making him question the subject of identity with its related rhetoric, as well as the variables of nation and ethnicity in his work. By working with forgotten historical events and referring to the current state of things, he challenges the power dynamics between the individual and authority on both the social and political levels. He gives a voice to the ethnic minority, with a focus on research and documentation of ignored happenings.

This solo highlights Alfadni’s deep research-based investigations into the forgotten silenced histories of the Sudan. He utilizes postcards, photographs and oral archives in order to reveal the complex relationship between colonialism and Black Africa, as well as the intermingled histories of Black Africa, Egypt and North Africa.

For more: https://www.sulger-buel-gallery.com/exhibitions/44-alternative-museum-of-the-sudan-a-solo-exhibition-of-amado-alfadni-curated-by/

Are Arabs Funny? Judge for yourself with this fabulous night of laughs aplenty, as the legendary comedy night ‘Arabs Are Not Funny’ comes to W2! You might have thought that Arabs couldn’t get any funnier. Think again. Widely regarded as one of the hottest comedy nights among the Arab community and beyond, ‘Arabs are not funny!‘ sees comedians with roots in the Arab world showcasing their talents and attempting to prove the naysayers wrong!

Line Up

Fatiha El Ghorri: Fatiha El-Ghorri is an actress and writer, known for British Rationals (2017), Comedy Central at the Edinburgh Fringe (2020) and 8:58 (2018).

Ella Al-Shamahi: Yemeni British, Ella is a National Geographic Explorer, paleoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist and stand-up comic.  Ella is also TV presenter, a TED 2019 speaker and has taken 4 shows up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Tamer Kattan: Tamer Kattan is a multi-award winning international comedian with a deep understanding of the human condition. He has TV and commercial credits in the United States and the UK, and is a regular at the Comedy Store, Improv and Laugh Factory in Los Angeles.

Omar Badawy: Originally from Egypt, Omar started in stand up in 2019 and, in his first year (+global pandemic), went on to win the prestigious ‘So You Think You’re Funny’ award at the Edinburgh Fringe. He talks about his encounters with strange school friends, football fans and EDL-badge-wearing bouncers, providing unique insight from a childhood moving from Egypt to Wales to Cambridge.

Fathiya: Youth worker by day and comedian by night, North West London comic Fathiya from Somali-Yemeni roots discusses the funny mishaps of what it’s like being Muslim and living in a Somali household!

Mo Magaleo: A young comedian from Morocco, who grew up in the UK. On stage Mo talks about growing up in a council estate, having a Muslim background, growing up with Moroccan parents, and many more stories/observations.

All acts will be in English.

For tickets: https://grandjunction.org.uk/events/arabs-are-not-funny/

Presented by MARSM

Duration: approx. 2 hours (incl. interval)

For tickets: https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on/nai-barghouti/

Description: Dr. Reem El Mutwalli will be in conversation with Amado Alfadni (Sudanese Egyptian Visual Artist) & Najlaa El- Ageli (Founder of Noon Arts Projects) to discuss the current ‘Alternative Museum of The Sudan’ exhibition at the Sulger-Buel Gallery. 

Najlaa El-Ageli is an architect with over twenty years of experience in the profession. Passionate about the arts, she founded Noon Arts Projects in 2012, a small private art foundation, to promote contemporary Libyan art and expose it to the world stage. Collaborating with cultural foundations and galleries, she has curated over 16 projects and successfully shed light on the current Libyan artistic scene.

Amado AlFadni is an artist who was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1976 to Sudanese parents. His childhood environment was composed of both the Cairene street and the traditions of a Sudanese household. The relationship and the tension between these two different cultures strongly influenced his views, making him question the subject of identity with its related rhetoric, as well as the variables of nation and ethnicity in his work. The ‘Alternative Museum of Sudan’ is Amado’s first solo exhibition in London, that traces the findings of his five-year journey and research into the buried histories of the people of the Sudan who were badly affected by colonialism and other interruptive external forces.

Date: 14th June 2022

Time: 12 pm (NYC), 5 pm (London), 8 pm (Dubai)

Tickets: Donation

Students: If you are a student or member of academia you can register online to receive your complimentary registration links. 

Registering will not only give you access to the live session but also a recorded version to catch up on in your own time.

For more information and registration: https://thezay.org/event/alternative-museum-of-sudan/

We will show Mardini’s 1990s photos from her archive in Damascus at ‘social’ events with the velvet society, a figurative term for business and power men following her induction into and eventual rejection of this system. These will be shown alongside clothes by western designers including Dior, Versace, Mugler, Chanel, Galliano, YSL, Alaia and Syrian designer Nicola Khoury. Our exhibition does not just celebrate glamour but questions the weaponizing of female sexuality into the game of politics and money.   

– Prof. Janis Jefferies, Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts, Goldsmiths, University of London

Programme of Events 

Saturday 25th June, 3.00 – 4.00 pm – Exhibition Tour for Everyone!  An opportunity to learn about the exhibition from the artist Heba Alakkad and curator Raghad Mardini in person, accompanied by a British Sign Language interpreter. Entry is free.

This program of events is supported by Shubbak Festival and Counterpoints Arts as part of Refugee Week. 

Presented by – Litehouse Gallery supported by the Arts Council England 

Litehouse Gallery was founded in London, UK in 2017 by Raghad Mardini in order to represent and promote emerging Syrian contemporary artists, create a hub for Syrian artists in the UK, and encourage new forms of cultural exchange between Syrian and British artists. 

Entry is free. No appointment necessary. Wheelchair accessible

For more: https://p21.gallery/news/99

Hawiyya Dance Company and El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe present Curfew –  www.curfewdance.com – a contemporary dance production.

Curfew speaks to a world that is numbed and no longer able to respond to the constant bombardment of news, surveillance and manipulation. It dares to stimulate the development of new reactions and discussions on social activism, bringing awareness of everyday life experience and individual self reflection, helping us to increase our understanding of and engagement with the world around us.

The dance groups will present a unique performance, bringing together Curfew with Love in the Time of Apartheid, a contemporary dance production devised and performed by solo artist and director Sharaf Dar Zaid.

The dance performance’s omnipresent themes of time – past and present – information, introspection, frustration and rebellion, lead us to face existential questions, whilst living and understanding concepts of opportunity, privilege, responsibility and duty. To challenge helplessness and to facilitate action to change, to become better world citizens, we have a duty and responsibility to channel important messages to the wider world.

The production does not give an answer, rather it questions the public and encourages us (the audience) to find our own answers by expiring and reflecting on our positions and our actions towards oppression, injustice and complexity.

Time passes, life goes on. Would you take responsibility to rather keep the CURFEW?

Love in the Time of Apartheid presents the start of internal conflict of an individual torn between the love for his homeland and the love for his partner. Through a rollercoaster of insomnia, stress, torment, and defiance, the dancer draws on his own personal story to represent that of thousands of Palestinians who struggle for family reunification.

This will be one of two UK performances sponsored by the Arts Council, British Council, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival and Interpal.

Performance is 50min with a 30minpost show Q&A.
No age guidance but is recommended for 8+ years.

For tickets: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/event-ticketing/app/?ev=21142