This workshop is from 12:00 till 15:00

We’ve all got stories to tell, ones we’re making up or want to, or of ourselves, our families, of places and worlds we’ve been or imagine. Join us for a brand new series of writing workshops, led by experienced fiction and prose tutor Amal Chatterjee.

At the end of the series, you’ll have at least one story completed or well under way, perhaps more, – or, if you are already working on a book or story underway, you’ll have completed it, or taken it to the next stage by exploring alternative ways of writing your stories, and discovering new tools for storytelling.

- In Session 1, on 20 October, we will work on character, description, perspective and voice;  
- In Session 2, on 24 November, we will work on scenes, plot and continuity;  
- In Session 3, on 15 December we’ll take work-in-progress, revise, workshop, develop and polis.

This workshop is for every aspiring writer, from absolute beginners to those with projects on the go, for people all backgrounds, and ages (17+). The working language will be English, but the stories you create could be in others too. 

Join us!

🎨 Cultural

De nieuwe liefde 

WritingY/OurStorys.3

Rola Azar

On December 7th, Fikra Magazine will launch its second print edition in De Nieuwe Liefde. Fikra is an independent literary magazine that publishes Palestinian voices online and in print. During the event, we will commemorate a year of genocide against the Palestinian people and show their resilience through literature and art. The struggle for Palestinian Freedom is ubiquitous; we fight from Gaza to New York and Lebanon to Amsterdam. We all have a role to play in upholding human rights and protesting the live-streamed genocide. 

During this event, we will launch and sell our second print edition. As a non-profit foundation, we will use the proceeds to pay Palestinian writers, visual artists, editors, and translators worldwide. 

The program includes readings by Palestinians from all over the world, an interview with writer Saleem Haddad, a panel discussion about the role of art during the genocide and live music by Rola Azar and Khalil expressing our unbreakable bond with the homeland. 

The event also features the Gaza Habibti photo exhibition by UntoldPalestine, a live art performance by visual artist Fuad Al Yamani, and the Palestinian Sound Archive exhibition by the Majazz Project. Photographs from the exhibition and Fuad’s final piece will be sold during the event. 

Programme:
18:00 Doors open, Palestinian food/snacks will be served
20:00 Start main program
21:30 Drinks

Join us on December 7th to support Palestinian art and get your Fikra copy.

Launch Event Second Print Edition

Majazz Project is proud to present its first-ever solo exhibition in Amsterdam! After a successful run with over 14,000 visitors in London’s famed Southbank Center, Majazz Project will be on display in De Nieuwe Liefde from 1st to 7th December 2024.  

After years of digging, discovering, remastering, Majazz welcomes you to the Palestinian Sound Archive, a celebration of music, spoken word, and album artwork. An act of reclamation and a site of resistance to colonial erasure, the Archive is an embodiment of Palestinian culture across decades. Weaving tales of joy, grief, love, resistance, and steadfastness, these sounds bridge generations. Visit the Palestinian Sound Archive at De Nieuwe Liefde all week and join us for a Listening Session + talk with curator Mo’min Swaitat on Tuesday, December 3rd. These sonic stories have travelled a long way to you, beckoning, a hand held out through time itself.

Tabaria Café is a Palestinian cultural pop-up—a temporary event or space that appears for a limited time, often in unexpected locations, before disappearing. Our café is dedicated to helping Palestinians in exile reconnect with their roots and educating others about Palestinian heritage. Our mission is to create a space where we can all come together to honour Palestinian culture.  

From 5 pm until 8 pm Tabaria Cafe will be in De Nieuwe Liefde hosting our visitors and welcoming them with sweet and savoury snacks and coffee that will transport you to a home away from home. We’ll have pop-up stands with books, accessories and more to raise funds for those in need in Palestine and Lebanon.

🪩 Party

Majazz Project: Palestinian Sound Archive

Since 2019, a group of photographers has dedicated itself to collecting visual narratives from Palestine. The driving force being hope, the photographers gather inspiring and diverse untold stories about the Palestinian people. With the current war in Gaza, everything has taken a dramatic turn. Palestinian photographers are now compelled to document stories of those who have been killed, yet continue to carry the torch of hope.

Mohamed Badarne will open the exhibition Gaza Habibti with a talk. We’ll chat to Mohamed about his & his team’s mission to change narratives through visual storytelling, the project Gaza Habibti and the plight of photographers during genocide. There will be music, tea and bites. 

About Untold Palestine and YURA:
Untold Palestine is an independent digital platform to tell visual stories about the lives of Palestinians. Through photographs and short videos, Untold Palestine shows realities that rarely appear in the media. The collective presents inspiring Palestinian individuals and initiatives from different fields and from all places. The platform brings together all Palestinians in the homeland and the diaspora.
Visual Storytelling for Social Change, YURA, is a non-profit company founded in Berlin, in 2022, by Palestinian photographer Mohamed Badarne. It uses multi-media art and visual storytelling to challenge stereotypes, dehumanising images of racialized people, migrants, and other sidelined social groups in the mainstream media and wider public sphere. Creating an inclusive human narrative is a crucial contribution to the fight against racism, oppression, and exploitation.

GazaHabibtiحبيبتيغزة

On Sunday, December 1st, from 1pm to 2.30pm, PHRC will host a workshop designed especially for children and adults. In the workshop we’ll engage with the artworks of the children in Gaza. What do their images reveal? How do they make us feel? 

By observing closely and listening carefully we’ll be able to have meaningful conversations with children, parents and others to process what we, here – young and old – have been witnessing for over a year. The children will then create their own drawings, inspired by the stories they wish to share with us. This workshop is designed for children aged 6 and above.

About The Children’s Village Gaza

During the past year, the Palestine Humanitarian Response Center has been active in the Gaza Strip with a team of professionals working on the ground, focusing on trauma relief and mental health activities. Children in Gaza are enduring immense hardship and psychological stress. The PHRC team helps them by providing opportunities for emotional release and therapeutic play.

In July 2024, the PHRC launched Witness | شاهد – Genocide through children’s eyes – an exhibition featuring drawings made by the children in the Children’s Village in Gaza. So far, it has traveled to three major cities in Europe: The Hague, Amsterdam, and Berlin. 

The artworks were created by children from the Gaza Strip where the PHRC offers drawing, painting, crafts and other creative workshops as outlets for children to process their experiences and emotions. 

The exhibition bears witness to the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians through the eyes of those who are impacted the most: the children. Their drawings give insight into what they live through in Gaza as they are enduring forced displacement, fear and loss.

Showcasing the original drawings is a way of bringing the reality of the Palestinian children in Gaza closer to people outside.

For more information and to donate to the Children’s Village in Gaza and other PHRC projects please visit https://www.palestinehumanitarianresponse.com/

Workshop(6+)Witnessشاهد

AngieB

Dankzij de smeltkroes van culturen in Suriname is het culinaire erfgoed veelzijdiger dan je denkt. Vaak denken we aan roti, bara of bakkeljauw als we het hebben over Surinaams eten, maar de keuken is zoveel meer. Surinaamse gerechten zijn als verhalen over identiteit, als recepten voor dialoog en begrip.

In zowel Suriname als Nederland leven verschillende bevolkingsgroepen vaak naast elkaar, maar niet altijd mét elkaar. In de keuken is dit anders: gerechten met Inheemse, Afrikaanse, Chinese, Javaanse en Hindostaanse roots worden met liefde van elkaar overgenomen. Pom, nasi, roti, en bb-r zijn favorieten die de grenzen van afkomst overstijgen. Maar waarom kan dit wel in de keuken, en niet altijd daarbuiten?

We stellen de vraag centraal hoe Surinaamse kookboeken kunnen bijdragen aan eenheid in diversiteit, in de keuken en daarbuiten. We praten met Surinaamse kookboekenschrijvers en kenners over orale tradities, het documenteren van recepten in kookboeken en de effecten van digitalisering en social media op de Surinaamse keuken.

Op de vooravond van Srefidensi dey, waarop iedereen los van zijn of haar achtergrond, bovenal Surinamer is, herdenken en vieren we samen eenheid in diversiteit.

Dit programma is gecureerd door Raghenie Bhawanie. Meer informatie over de sprekers volgt z.s.m.

Gesprekken over Surinaams culinair erfgoed

In Textual Politics, een samenwerking tussen The Writer’s Guide (to the Galaxy) en De Nieuwe Liefde, buigen we ons in drie workshops over de meer activistische kant van schrijven. Kritische columns met een knipoog, schrijven over je lichaam als daad van politiek verzet of spandoeken borduren: the textual is political.

Landschappen lijden onder oorlog, kapitalistische systemen en onderdrukking, maar dragen ook mooie gebeurtenissen en rituelen uit het verleden in zich. In deze workshop verdiepen we ons in het werk van schrijvers en kunstenaars die zich richten op (politieke) landschappen en de verhalen die daaruit ontstaan. Yazan Khalili, bijvoorbeeld, die in _On Love and Other Landscapes_ een liefdesverhaal vertelt aan de hand van Palestijnse landschappen. Aan de hand van een aantal schrijfopdrachten werk je toe naar het schrijven van een eigen landschapstekst.

Datum: zondag 24 november 2024  
Tijd: 15.00 – 17.30 uur

TextualPolitics

In Textual Politics, een samenwerking tussen The Writer’s Guide en De Nieuwe Liefde, buigen we ons in drie workshops over de meer activistische kant van schrijven. Kritische columns met een knipoog, schrijven over je lichaam als daad van politiek verzet of spandoeken borduren: the textual is political.

Landschappen lijden onder oorlog, kapitalistische systemen en onderdrukking, maar dragen ook mooie gebeurtenissen en rituelen uit het verleden in zich. In deze workshop verdiepen we ons in het werk van schrijvers en kunstenaars die zich richten op (politieke) landschappen en de verhalen die daaruit ontstaan. Yazan Khalili, bijvoorbeeld, die in On Love and Other Landscapes een liefdesverhaal vertelt aan de hand van Palestijnse landschappen. Aan de hand van een aantal schrijfopdrachten werk je toe naar het schrijven van een eigen landschapstekst.

Je docent is Maureen Ghazal. Maureen schrijft poëzie en proza, maakt beeldend werk en performances. Haar werk werd onder andere gepubliceerd in De Gids, De Revisor en Extra Extra Magazine. Ze trad op, op podia als Crossing Border Festival, Frontaal en Nacht van de Arabische Literatuur. In haar werk schrijft ze over geboortegrond, voorouderlijke gebruiken en rituelen en vrouw-zijn.

Meld je uiterlijk 10 november 2024 aan via het aanmeldformulier: https://thewritersguide.typeform.com/to/iEORxloM?typeform-source=www.thewritersguide.nl. Uit alle aanmeldingen kiezen we maximaal 15 deelnemers.

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Event source:
https://denieuweliefde.com/agenda/textual-politics-3/

Untangling Landscapes door Maureen Ghazal

WritingY/OurStorys.2

This month, The Book Club in De Nieuwe Liefde will be discussing the deeply personal journey of “Decolonizing Our Mind”.

Living within the heart of empire can create profound identity crises. Surrounded by colonial histories and perpetuated systems of racism, we are often torn between the identities shaped by neo/post/colonial mechanisms and the true essence of who we are, rooted in our cultural histories, traditions, and ancestral knowledge. In this session, we will unpack how colonial systems continue to shape not only the societies we live in, but also the very way we think, see ourselves, and relate to others.

Decolonizing our minds means critically examining the ways we internalize colonial narratives—about race, power, and self-worth. It’s about acknowledging how historical oppression continues to shape modern realities and making the conscious effort to dismantle these beliefs within ourselves. Whether it’s the subtle forms of racism we encounter daily or the deep-rooted impact of colonisation on our ancestral lands, the effects linger in how we perceive ourselves and our place in the world. 

This book club is a space to reflect on how we can confront and begin to heal from the mental shackles imposed by colonialism.

Books:

1. “How to Raise an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi – Kendi dives into how we can challenge the racist systems ingrained in society, starting from childhood. This book will inspire us to think about how we can raise ourselves, and the next generation, to be aware of and actively resist the pervasive racist ideologies we unknowingly inherit.

2. “1984” by George Orwell – Though a dystopian novel, Orwell’s depiction of control through language and thought speaks volumes about how power structures, including colonial states, manipulate and suppress our individual and collective identities. Despite being written in the 1940s, the book eerily rings true in today’s age! 

3. “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates – This is an open letter that Coates wrote to his son, wherein he offers a deeply personal narrative on race and identity in America, specifically addressing how systemic racism shapes the lived experience of Black people.

Join us as we exchange ideas, share personal experiences, and dive into these critical discussions on decolonization. We’ll explore how we can reclaim our identities, resist the mental conditioning of colonialism, and find a path toward collective liberation in a world that continues to uphold colonial frameworks. 

Whether or not you’ve read the books, your voice and perspectives are essential to this conversation.

See you there!