'Creating a Community of Care' workshop with Jad El Khoury and Sofienberg-
prosjektet

 

DATE: SATURDAY 14 SEPTEMBER
TIME: 13:00-15:00
PLACE: Sofienberg kirke, Rathkes gate 13
RSVP: HERE

In 2022, a metal shutter was shipped from Beirut, Lebanon, to The Street Art Museum of Amsterdam (STRAAT). Artist Jad El Khoury, supported by STRAAT and ME Art Gallery Amsterdam, had set out to transform an object scarred by war and violence into a Care Portal.

Through the holes left by explosions and bullets, the audience is invited to leave messages of hope and healing on colourful post-it notes, for people suffering from the consequences of wars all over the world. The messages received through the Care Portal are routinely collected and sent to the artist’s studio residency located in the City Hall of Oslo, and these notes will form the basis of the workshop taking place during the opening of Sofienbergprosjektet Saturday 14th September.

This workshop was planned to be in two parts: in part one, the participants were invited to join a guided conversation inside Sofienberg church with artist Jad El Khoury. In part two, the participants created a collective work of art using spray-paint outdoors with some assistance.

But when you work with people, you can never guarantee that everything will go according to plan, and when you work with art in this way, you can never predict which turn the artwork will take. As you can see in the pictures, the conversation with Jad became far less formal than expected and the workshop became an interactive work of art in itself like a second part of his original Care Portal.

 

About 
Jad El Khoury is a Lebanese multidisciplinary artist, currently based in Oslo. He first started working with war traces found on buildings of Lebanon in 2016 as a poetic method of rebellion: “Being from the first post civil-war generation, transforming accidental monuments of bitterness in the city into choreographed installations dancing with the wind, was a necessity”.

This event is hosted by Sofienbergprosjektet, and is a part of Oslo Street Art Festival 2024.