Note on finding the venue! The post code will take you to Pepper Street, on Pepper Street there is a church called ALL SAINTS. Next to the church there's a little alley with a gate and green circle - walk through that gate and you will find us!
KONTEKST Collective invites you to an evening of art and guided conversation in support of Palestinian life and futures.
The evening includes a fundraiser for Farah, a journalist student and youth advocate and family member to our extended community from Gaza who, after more than two years of extreme violence, genocide and displacement, is attempting to raise funds to be able to take up a partially-scholarshipped opportunity to continue her university studies in Santiago, Chile.
The program features an exhibition by palestinian collage and mixed-media artist Shada Abdalqader, on the topic of لعنة الوعي, alongside activated writing by palestinian writers Shams Hanieh and Rand Abdalqader.
SHADA ABDALQADER, MULTIMEDIA ARTIST
Shada first turned to drawing as a means to articulate her emotions, creating a journal of unspoken thoughts on paper or simply thought vomit. This gradually evolved into a visual journal, giving form to unspoken grief and layered turmoil focusing on the Palestinian lived experience.
With an MSc in psychology, Shada integrates her interest in liberation psychology with her entirely self taught art practice. Her work explores the Palestinian identity, reality, and psyche. While rooted in personal experience, her work acts as a collective testimony, where home is both a site of comfort and a source of loss. Abdalqader is interested in creating works that respond to diverse experiences, sensations and realities, while maintaining connection as a way of collective healing.
THEME OF THE EVENING
We hope the evening will act as an opportunity to reflect on enduring relationship to homeland, diasporic Palestinian experience, movement and the restriction of movement across geographies, as well as artistic practice as a form of collective resistance and survival.
SHAMS HANIEH, WRITER AND RESEARCHER
Shams Hanieh is a Palestinian-Algerian writer and researcher. Her creative writing encompasses poetry and experimental prose exploring the surreality of Palestinianness and womanhood, while her wider writing and research interests include Arabic hip-hop and visual art, alternative geographies, and sexual health in Palestine. She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics, and her work has been featured in DJ Mag, The Quietus, GQ Middle East, Institute for Palestine Studies, Rusted Radishes, among others.
RAND ABDALQADER, FREELANCE WRITER
Rand Abdalqader is a London-based Palestinian freelance writer interested in environmentalism, indigenous ways of living, and anticoloniality. Her work sits at the intersection of storytelling, critical inquiry, and advocacy, and aims to explore how power, land, and culture shape communities and their struggles for justice. She has studied Journalism and Media as well as Human Rights across universities in both Palestine and the UK. Her studies allowed her to engage with anticolonial thought and frameworks, particularly in relation to Palestine and other struggles against oppression.
Free homemade Palestinian snacks will be shared as an offering of hospitality and cultural continuity.
To get a ticket, donate any amount to Farah’s fundraiser and secure your spot through the link above! We suggest a donation of at least 10 pounds or more if that’s within your budget, but any amount is ok.