Encounter: 4th Ta Oval Session Encounter: Somali Community Resilience Through Art, with Sagal Farah and Mustafa Saeed, organized by Zoncy Heavenly.

DUE TO PERSONAL REASONS, THE ENCOUNTER HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO WEDNESDAY AUGUST.21ST

Date: Wednesday, August 21st

Time: 19:00 – 21:00

The previous Tea Oval was a vibrant display of cheerful and hopeful engagement and emotional collaboration. Artists of diverse disciplines and cultural thinkers from various origins came together to advocate for those facing conflict and adversity. This profound connection infused the 4th Tea Oval with a deeper meaning.  Amazed by the similar root causes of conflict, transition, and potential threats, with a shared background in civil wars and ethnic divisions in Somali speaking regions and Myanmar, Zoncy Heavenly, the host of the Tea Oval, began to explore the resilience of Somali art communities against displacements due to political instability and climate crisis over the past two decades.  After conducting a comparative analysis of the political timeline between Myanmar and Somaliland, Zoncy invites the artist and founder of Fankeenna, Mustafa Saeed, and SAVVY Contemporary curator Sagal Farah to share more about community resilience through the arts.

At the 4th Tea Oval, you will have the exclusive opportunity to gain profound insights from the live online conversation between Sagal and Mustafa on the community-engaged art practices that empower the community’s resilience and vice versa. Bring your friends, and immerse yourself in the Tea Oval to hear the multiple Somali voices up close.

Tea Oval session is a monthly forum from May to November 2024 for new and emerging perspectives on artistic resistance against political dictatorship worldwide. The invited contributors and participants will analyze the most successful artistic tactics used in political reimagination. By the end of the sessions, the contributions and collective findings will be co-authored as a manual for Myanmar artists to exercise political imagination.

BIO
Sagal Farah, born in Mogadishu, Somalia, is a writer and curator at SAVVY Contemporary where she additionally serves as the curator for SAVVY.DOC, the documentation center and archive at SAVVY Contemporary and the Arjun Appadurai Library.

Mustafa Saeed, a Somali artist, resides in Hargeisa, Somaliland. He utilizes a variety of mediums, such as photography, graphics, and sound, to delve into socio-political topics like war, conflict, and the environment. In 2015, he was selected for the Arab Documentary Program ADPP, and his art has been displayed at events like Addis Foto Fest (Addis Ababa), Lumières d’Afriques (Paris), and UNSEEN Photo Fair (Amsterdam). Additionally, his work has received extensive coverage on news and media platforms, including the BBC. Mustafa is co-founder of Fankeena, a youth-led multi-purpose art platform that houses a studio, gallery, and an open workspace for artists in Hargeisa, Somaliland.

Event held onsite: Donaustr. 84, 12043 Berlin