Arts, Crafts, and Storytelling in the Middle East

Tatreez and Tea* 10:30AM -12:30PM

Wafa Ghnaim will lead an arts and crafts workshop on Tatreez, traditional Palestinian embroidery, over tea and snacks. *Please note this portion of the event is for high school and college students ONLY. RSVP here.

Panel: Storytelling in the Middle East 1:30 PM -3:30PM

This panel brings together three artists whose work is centered on storytelling in the Middle East to talk about their recently published works and the salience of arts and crafts today and historically. Zeina Hachem Beck will read excerpts of her bilingual poetry and reflect on how Arab stories can be told in two languages at the same time. Wafa Ghnaim will talk about her work bringing the traditional Palestinian craft of tatreez to diaspora communities in New York and how Palestinian stories are told through textiles. Sato Moughalian will share with us the life and work of her grandfather, David Ohanessian, who established the main Armenian pottery workshop in Jerusalem 100 years ago and is the subject of her new biography, Feast of Ashes. Discounted copies of each authors books will be available for purchase, and light refreshments will be provided. 

Ms. Moughalian’s narrative biography of her grandfather, David Ohannessian, who founded the Armenian ceramics tradition in Jerusalem in 1919, will be released in April by Redwood Press, the new trade imprint of Stanford University Press. Moughalian's articles on the subject of Ohannessian’s art have been published in Stambouline, Toplumsal Tarih, an exhibition catalogue of the Komitas Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia, and in the anthology, A la découverte de la Jérusalem des Armenians, forthcoming from Somogy Éditions d’Art. In connection with her research on Ohannessian and his art in both Ottoman Kütahya and Mandate Jerusalem, she can be heard on the Ottoman History and Society for Armenian Studies podcast series.

Sato Moughalian has served as principal flutist of Gotham Chamber Opera, the American Modern Ensemble, Oratorio Society of NY; guest flutist with groups including Imani Winds, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the American Ballet Theatre and American Symphony Orchestras, and the Orquestra Sinfonico do Estado São Paulo, Brazil. She can be heard on more than thirty chamber music recordings on the Sony Classics, BIS, Albany, Newport, and the American Modern labels. In May of 2019, Perspectives Ensemble will release its second Naxos CD, featuring two works by Manuel de Falla: El Amor Brujo (1915 version) and El Retablo de Maese Pedro.