The aim of the create-shops was to develop useful products that reflect upon Palestinian reality and can be produced in respectively Jerusalem or Gaza. It was a collaborative process with high emphasis on creativity, collaboration, making and quality. Participants experimented and developed ideas collectively, engaged in discussions and were introduced to different craft workshops. The variety of site visits gave an enriching impression of Palestinian crafts — which was as important for the international as it was for the Palestinian participants. The tours were valuable as it gave the opportunity to visit places most participants had never seen before, or did not know existed. This enabled us to unveil unique local qualities that were reflected in the design processes.

The participants were highly engaged, motivated, committed, generous and open, and everyone got to know each other well. The energy in the group, the sensitivity of the participants, the understanding, the good ambience all resulted in the smooth and creative creation of many ideas for the create-shop. A lot of them were immediately visualised with a mostly hands-on approach of the participants. And with the closed facebook group for all participants the different creative processes were being shared between Jerusalem and Gaza. The Skype sessions with Gaza had a valuable impact on the participants, even though not every skype appointment was possible to succeed. There were electricity and internet problems (actually mainly on the Jerusalem side) that sometimes withheld a skype meeting.

Narrative report Create-shop

Follow the full programme, read the briefing, the process, see all developed designs and engage with the reflections by the participants in this detailed narrative report.

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Al-Ma’mal Create Shop Exhibition 2015

Al-Ma’mal, Old city, Jerusalem (PS), 10 September – 18 September 2015

During this year’s 3-week create shop, 18 artists and designers in Jerusalem and 12 in Gaza have developed remarkable new goods that will soon be sold via the online store. The create-shop course was guided and organized by Disarming Design (Annelys de Vet and Sami Khaldi), and included independent curators, artists and designers such as: Jumana Abboud, Aline Khoury, Benji Boyadgian, Yazan Khalili, Lara Khaldi, Alya Rayyan, and Rudy Luijters.

An exhibition featuring the participants and output from the create-shop took place from September 10 – September 18, 2015 in art center Al Ma’mal in the old center of Jerusalem.

Listen to Areej Ashab at Al Ma’mal in Jerusalem telling the stories of all the different prototypes to the participants in Gaza who were not able to visit the exhibition that included their designs.

Products in our collection from this workshop