For the last couple months 6+ has been developing the next workshop for the young women in the Dheisheh Refugee Camp in the West Bank. We focused on sound mapping and sound poems. Sherry and Wendy just got back and here are some photos of how it went. All of our girls are growing up!
More about Dheisheh Workshop #3 to come!
From Sherry:
Dear Friends and Family,
Wendy and I were in Jerusalem this weekend and had a great weekend. Last week we spent most of our time preparing for the workshop with the young girls at Dheisheh Camp and doing the workshop. It turned out very well in the beginning and the end with some bumps in the middle and things not going according to our plans. I think this is the thing about being in Palestine, you have to learn to be flexible and go with the situation.
We spent the first day of the workshop making beautiful little accordian books all together. We brought the supplies and this time we had really gorgeous cotton rag from Two Hands paper store. We asked the girls to go home and draw a map of their home and sit and listen to the sounds in their homes and write them down. They drew really beautiful floor plans of their houses, I am not sure why they are so natural in thinking about architectural plans. They seemed to really listen to the sounds in their houses too, they all have at least 4 brothers and sisters and they described the sounds in their homes based somewhat on this. The next day we spent time learning to record sounds around the Center finding sounds and making sounds together, which was a lot of fun. Then the girls started trying to record background sound and forground sound and trying to put sounds together in some pattern and also telling stories about their homes connected to the sounds. It got a little abstract, and disconnected and Wendy and I were a little worried. Then on the final day we spent most of the day walking around the camp collecting sounds and taking pictures. We had several cameras and the girls loved taking pictures. We have hundreds of them and some are really good. At the end of the last day we had a party and we downloaded all the images and projected a slide show. Then one of our lovely translators/assistants from the camp, Haneen who we have now known for 3 years when she was in the first workshop, conducted a critique of the workshop. The girls were quite honest about what they liked and didn’t like, but basically they loved the workshop and wanted it to be longer and want us to come back again. It was and is and has been really rewarding everytime we have done these workshops. We have formed bonds with many of the girls over time and watched them grow up. Our relationship with the Owdah family and the Al-Fenique Center is very special and I hope we can keep coming back.
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