On April 25 Isshaq Albabary will host the first public presentation of the Mujaawarah group, part of the collective project It’s OK… Mujaawarah (مجاورة meaning gathering or neighbouring in Arabic) is an embodied experience and refers to practices of collective learning and ‘making time’, inspired by the work of Munir Fasheh.
The Mujaawarah brings together a group of people who form friendships, converse and construct meanings to weave a new social, intellectual and cultural fabric. The group has been meeting regularly over the past months and at this event, will present the Mujaawarah method and process and engage with a broader audience for the first time.
Isshaq Al-Barbary (Bethlehem / Amsterdam) is an artist and researcher focusing on the interactions happening between refugees and their lived spaces. In his practice, which has been shaped by his life growing up in a refugee camp in Palestine, Al-Barbary initiates mujaawarat and tanaqush (discussion) as practices for collective learning and practices of “making time” and non-dominant, speculate time formation. This involves seeking ways to express the trauma of a disfranchised population and turning it into collective, empowering performances.
WHERE Oude Kerksplein 3
WHEN 25 April, 19:00
Context
This group and event is part of It’s OK…, a collective durational undertaking, coordinated by Jeanne van Heeswijk and Yvonique van Wellen. It’s OK… works towards Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary, taking place in- and around the Oude Kerk and related territories. The Oude Kerk is located at the Wallen: an area where many different people, ideals and uncertainties exist side by side, and where current realities are under pressure of dominant notions of a what a thriving neighbourhood entails.
