Old Ghosts

What might a memory look like as a ghost? On this evening, falling two moons before All Hallow’s Eve, dive into the archive of perception for a haunting exploration of the past. Our individual and cultural histories float through and around us all the time; sometimes their after-effects feel like phantoms. How might we encounter and materialize these phantoms through writing and visual media?

Guided in part by our special guest, Mater Sva, we’ll spend a couple hours stepping beyond the fragmented, linear timelines that dominate contemporary Western thought. Embrace intuition, listen to the subconscious and perhaps encounter a message from the energetic loop of lived experience. 


This workshop is in collaboration with the divination studio of Mater Sva, aka Iva Berković. As an oracle performance practitioner, Mater Sva becomes an ancient intelligence channel. Through practices such as tarot, coffee-cup reading, fortune telling, altered-state seances and more, they open portals of the psyche and soul. Mater Sva is your conduit to other realms.

Your instructors 

Daniel J. Cecil is a writer and teacher in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His work has appeared in The Rumpus, The Heavy Feather Review, The LA Review of Books, Barrelhouse, Miracle Monocle, and The Stranger among other notable publications. His fiction has been nominated for a pushcart, was long listed for the Dzanc Fiction Prize, short-listed for the Yes Yes Books open reading period, and has received the support of several residencies. 

Daniel teaches travel writing and literature for Emerson College at their Limburg campus and is the founder of Honing House, an English-language, community-centered, and empathy-led educational resource that was built for writers all over the world.

Shayna Schapp is a queer Artist Educator based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has over 20 years experience working at the crossroads of creativity, pedagogy and social justice. Most notably, she was a core instructor with Interactive/Media/Design (I/M/D) at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and the Community Art Developer for LEAD, an after-school program in Amsterdam.

Shayna works with photography and drawing, documenting her immediate family and exploring internal landscapes. She’s exhibited her work in the USA, NL and UK and is in publications such as Versal Journal, Pigeonhole and SMART Papers.