IMG 2726 Ein al Uwayneh2 at Sakiya 1536x1152 — Al-Uwayneh spring, Sakiya, ‘Ein Qiniya, the West Bank. Image by Jumana Emil Abboud, 2020.

As part of These Seasons, SI is pleased to present A River’s Keepers, a creative storytelling workshop, led by artist Jumana Emil Abboud, on the lived and mythed embodiments of water. This collaborative workshop will occur in multiple phases with a select group of participants between February – April 2025 and will materialize in a live spoken-word performance in May 2025. Included below are further details of the workshop’s themes as well as the terms of participation.

Water is ever-shifting—its tides and currents mark time, its flow carves histories, and its presence is both life-giving and elusive. A River’s Keepers invites you to explore these layered temporalities and the shape-shifting nature of rivers and streams through storytelling. We use the term “Mythed” to evoke the ways myths and folktales infuse our lives, merging the imagined, the real, and the wished-for. Guided by Abboud, this workshop series considers how our collective stories can honor the water bodies that sustain us.

Workshop and Performance Schedule

Introductory Workshop: Saturday, February 15, 1-4:30 PM (in-person)

Workshop Series:

Session II: Saturday, March 8, 11AM-1PM (online)
Session III: Saturday, April 19, 11AM-1PM (online)
Rehearsal: Tuesday, May 20, 5-7PM (in-person)
Collective Storytelling Performance: Wednesday, May 21, 6.30PM

Kindly note all listed times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

Workshop Overview

The project begins with an introductory workshop, open to everyone interested in participating. This session will introduce the workshop’s overarching themes, inspired by the prompt: “what is your story of water?”

Following this session, some participants will be selected to continue into a three-part workshop series, two held online and the third in-person, in preparation for the performance. Together, Abboud and the participants will imagine ways their stories might support and revere water, as well as human and non-human bodies.

How to Apply

Please contact rsvp@swissinstitute.net with the following details before February 12, 2025:

In the email title, please write “RSVP: Participation in A River’s Keepers”
Please include your name, phone number, and confirmation of your availability for both the introductory session and the subsequent workshop series.
Respond to the prompt: “what is your story of water?” (Your response will help us better understand your connection to the theme and your vision for exploring it creatively).

Spaces are limited so we encourage you to express your interest as soon as possible. Whether your connection to water is deeply personal, rooted in ancestral memory, or shaped by myth, we would love to hear your voice in this collaborative exploration. Please note that no previous experience in storytelling or performance is necessary.

Jumana Emil Abboud is a Palestinian Canadian artist whose practice draws on folk tales, water lore, and interconnected human and more-than-human legacies. Merging cultural tradition with contemporary life, she explores the continuity of stories and landscapes past dispossession. Her multi-disciplinary practice has been included in exhibitions and Biennales, among them, the Diriyah Biennale (2024); documenta 15 (2022); the 23rd Biennale of Sydney (2022); the Jerusalem Show (2009, 2018); the Venice Biennale (2009, 2015), the Sharjah Biennale (2005, 2011); and solo exhibitions at Cample Line (2023); Tavros Athens (2022); the Khaled Shoman Foundation Darat al Funun, Bildmuseum University, Umea (2017); and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (2016). Abboud is currently a Jameel Fellow at the V&A London, in partnership with Cirva, Marseille.

These Seasons is an ongoing transdisciplinary public program that invites artists, scholars and writers to explore theories of nature, landscape, ecology, human and non-human life forms and climate action.

These Seasons is made possible by Teiger Foundation.