Culture Resource is pleased to announce the projects selected for the first round of Wasl program. Wasl promotes networking between independent cultural organizations in the Arab region, and aims to strengthen the culture of collaboration and mutual learning between them.
In this first round, the program will support the following projects:
Return Path – Abdel Aziz Abdel Rahman Murfaq, Basement Cultural Foundation (Sana’a, Yemen) / Aisha Ali Al-Juaidy, Takween Cultural Club (Hadhramaut, Yemen):
Return Path is a collaborative project about the impact of the political crisis and conflicts on the cultural context in Yemen. It aims to train artists, intellectuals, and cultural activists on advocating cultural issues in two cities: Sana’a and Mukalla. The project aims to revisit the cultural experience in Yemen (after the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 to the present) and to reexamine the main issues that affected cultural policies and marginalized culture.
From Cairo to Beirut – Deema Kaedbey, The Knowledge Workshop (Beirut, Lebanon) / Dina Abdel-Nabi from BuSSy Project (Cairo, Egypt):
A collaborative project between two groups that, in their own contexts, have explored storytelling as a powerful tool that can reflect realities that are often unrecognized or not discussed enough. In this collaboration, the BuSSy project and the Knowledge Workshop will explore how women relate to the sounds of their cities and to the cities, themselves, and explore how this shapes their identities and their relationship with with their bodies.
The Dabkeh and Life skills – Anas Abu Oun, El-Funoun Dance Troupe (Ramallah, Palestine) / Ruba Al-Souri, Wa’ad Youth Organization (Amman, Jordan):
The project aims to develop a collaboration program through research and dialogue between El-Funoun Dance Troupe in Palestine and Wa’ad Youth Organization in Jordan. The project involves creating a Dabkeh dance troupe and training a group of trainers to maintain the sustainability of the project, that simultaneously focuses on the Dabkeh dancer as a person who has an impact on his/her community and as a conveyer of a cultural identity through Dabkeh.
Unlimited – Reem Al-Khatib, Open Arts Space (Damascus, Syria) / Mosab Hassouna, the Filmmaking for Children Initiative (Khartoum, Sudan):
A visual cultural dialogue and technical capacity-building project that is based on the concept of the image in its broader sense. The project gives the participants (artists, children and youth of different backgrounds) from Syria and Sudan the opportunity to express themselves and their different identities through art. Contemporary arts are brought into play as a medium for developing the artistic skills of the participants in filmmaking, photography and graffiti art.
The fear myths – Sara Masri, Mazg Foundation (Cairo, Egypt) / Seif Nechi, Soubia (Tunisia, Tunisia):
Myths and folk tales are based on scaring children and directing messages that make them always listen to the voice of the mother or grandmother, which keeps them from being adventurous because adventures will bring them suffering and trouble, even if they may often be full of pleasure, useful experiences and magic. The project will deconstruct and analyse these stories, study how they are used in Egypt and Tunisia today, and examine how myth and folk tales travel from one place to another and affect the collective consciousness across the ages.
The jury consisted of:
Jumana Al-Yasiri (Syria/Iraq), cultural manager and artistic advisor;
Dalia Daoud (Egypt), cultural manager;
Ammar Kassab (Algeria), international cultural policies expert.
