Sit With Us: Behind the Scenes
We’ve had a busy month preparing for our upcoming project Sit With Us, with workshops, rehearsals, the long-awaited return to in-person Friday sessions, revealing the official Sit With Us poster and tickets going on sale!
Mafwa members have been working with Rommi Smith, a multi-award winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker and performer. Rommi delivered a poetry session using the technique of ‘scribing’, asking members to discuss what ‘home’ and ‘comfort’ means to them and noting down words and phrases to create poems that will be featured in the installation.
Áine Reynolds is a Leeds based artist whose work is anchored in community, collectivism and DIT (do it together) practices. She is the Movement Lead for Sit With Us and has been supporting our members in learning about digital and physical performance. Áine has run movement sessions over zoom, inviting members to select and move with objects of comfort and relaxation.
Áine has also run two in-person movement sessions at the covid secure setting of CLAY. Mafwa members clapped and cheered when told we would be running our first in-person sessions of the year. We function as both an arts group and as a support group for the women we work with, whose mental health has been greatly affected by the pandemic, and we were overjoyed to reunite and move together in person.
Photos by Tom Arber
‘Move With Us’, a film created by Parang Khezri in collaboration with Mafwa members during a series of workshops held this spring, will also be featured in the installation.
Parang is an award-winning Kurdish-Iranian director, writer, producer and actor with a career in film spanning over 13 years. Her interests lie in surrealism, art cinema, feminism, and experimental films and she likes to explore the concept of humanity within her storytelling.
Parang says that “it's important to build a community environment where women from all backgrounds can come together and get to know each other, socialise and have a safe space where they can all belong, it's an integral part of society... (Sit With Us) aims to help people feel that safe space and give people a sense of calm and tranquillity, which is what I think we could all do with after this crazy pandemic year. Mafwa are aiming to provide this peaceful space where we can gather our thoughts and just be”.
Textile artists Jenna Coulthard and Ranya Abdulateef have been working with members to create screen print fabric hangings that will be featured in the space. Textile workshops have focused on the theme of ‘home’ and what that means to different people.
Jenna is a textiles designer & artist who specialises in bold colourful prints, she has worked with different communities to produce lots of work including murals and installations.
Ranya is a designer and printmaker working under the name, Rumanh. She is inspired by nature and Islamic geometric designs, her unique hand-drawn designs, screenprints and embroidery pieces are extremely detailed. Ranya's work is made more distinct by the use, and often layering, of multiple techniques including printmaking, embroidery, drawing and illustration. Ranya says that “it was a pleasure to see the final result and support the group of women as they share their creativity and learn new skills that they can develop in future”.
Ranya has also designed the cushion prints seen here in the official Sit With Us poster.
Baile Ali has created soundscapes that will feature inside the exhibition space. These soundscapes draw inspiration from the group’s weekly zoom sessions and have been designed to create a space to hold you. Baile is an artist, researcher, sound engineer and co-founder of Leeds based online radio station and creative platform Sable Radio.
Mafwa’s Associate Artists have collaborated with Sable Radio and sound designer and broadcaster Ora Ataguba to create ‘Walk With Us’, a series of four soundwalks with a suggested walking route starting at Convention House. The soundwalks will invite you to leave your shoes at the door and step into somebody else’s for a while.
The Creative Producer for Sit With Us is Rochyne Delaney McNulty. Rochyne is a passionate human who enjoys making things with other passionate humans, their practice is often collaborative, devised and doesn’t stick to one medium. Rochyne has been working hard to create a comfortable, multi-functional exhibition space that is safe and accessible to all.
All participants have been working remotely throughout the majority of this project and whilst we’re over the moon to be creating work that you can interact with in person we have undertaken rigorous covid precautions to ensure the safety of staff and attendees.
Sit With Us has been designed with social distancing guidelines in mind and we will only be permitting a maximum of 3 visitors into the space at a time. The space will be sanitised and ventilated after each viewing. Masks are mandatory and will also be provided at the venue alongside hand sanitising stations. The installation is open to visitors by appointment only, tickets must be booked in advance and attendees will be required to sign in and out of the building.
For those who don’t live locally or who don’t feel comfortable dipping their toe back into in-person events yet, we will be hosting an online version of the installation available for all to visit from 14.6.21
Mafwa will be hosting an online premiere in collaboration with Migration Matters and Wharf Chambers on June 14th. The premiere celebrates the launch of Sit With Us and will feature ‘Move With Us’ a film by Parang Khezri, behind the scenes footage, Q&A’s with people involved with the project, poetry readings and soundscapes. Stay tuned for further information about the premiere.
This installation comes from a desire to create a tranquil oasis and explore what it means to be comfortable in a hostile environment. We cannot wait for you to take a seat, make yourself comfortable and Sit With Us this Refugee Week.