Similar Beginnings: Walk and Talk co-hosted by San Mei Gallery and Mosaic Rooms

Join artists Tawfik Naas and Emily Sarsam on a walk and guided exploration of lens shifting, inspired by Naas' exhibition 'Chaos Is A Flower'. They borrow its methodology, drawing from perspectives in ecology and cosmology, to reimagine the past.

Through communal bread-breaking and readings, they will delve into what it means to view history with fresh eyes. This walk offers a chance to listen, reflect, observe, and converse, using embodied exercises to deepen our understanding of our surroundings.

The walk will start at San Mei Gallery and end in Myatt’s Fields Park, to conclude with shared food and discussions about the group's collective experience. An opportunity to then write a postcard capturing the essence of our reflections will be the ending to this exchange.

This event is co-programmed by The Mosaic Rooms and San Mei Gallery. Food and refreshments provided. 


About the facilitators:

Emily Sarsam is a Tunis based artist, researcher, and cultural programmer whose work revolves around sound, fiction & poetry, independent publishing, and food. She is especially interested in the politics of olive oil, commoning in rural and agricultural contexts, and the impacts of colonialism on food systems and eating habits. She also researches and facilitates embodied learning environments and methods for art mediation in the form of workshops, creative learning programs, and residencies. She is one of the co-founders of Broudou, a research collective and publication dedicated to the future of food in Tunisia, and part of Mouhit, an artist residency in Tunis, where she offers support in programming and artist mentoring.

Chaos is a Flower, a solo exhibition by Tawfik Naas: 

Tawfik Naas’s interdisciplinary practice looks to create environments that offer alternative frameworks for understanding historical trauma, drawing on cosmological and ecological perspectives.

This exhibition in particular focuses on the troubled history of the ‘Great Manmade River’, a government-led infrastructure system initiated in the late 1980s by the then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Great Manmade River was designed to bring fresh water from underground fossil aquifers in the Sahara to the populous coastal regions of Libya. Often described as the world's largest irrigation project, the Great Manmade River aimed to provide water, security and agricultural development by transporting vast quantities of fossilised water that had accumulated thousands of years earlier when the Sahara had been home to a lush and temperate climate. However, the project produced a myriad of unintended consequences that caused distress and trauma to individuals and communities involved, including Naas’ own family who migrated soon thereafter.

This exhibition and its associated programme of events has been supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and from The Henry Moore Foundation.

For further information about this event, please visit our website.