All Change - Jawad Al-Malhi and Tina Sherwell 2001 - 2002

When assessing the results of the first three years of workshops, it was evident that there needed to be a greater range of learning activities, more focus on group interaction and wider participation. As a consequence Al-Ma’mal decided to diversify and expand the workshops to encompass various forms of visual art. The possibilities included experimentation in drawing, painting, collage, clay, installation, and video as well as photography. Artists employed to design and deliver the workshops were encouraged to utilize whatever approach, medium and technique they thought would best serve the purpose, while also following Al-Ma’mal’s overall objectives.

As a consequence four new workshops were launched in 2001 with two new partners: the Spafford Children’s Centre and the Burj Al-Laqlaq centre. All four workshops were conducted by Palestinian Artist Jawad Al-Malhi and his wife, British artist, writer and educator Dr. Tina Sherwell.

Jawad al Malhi had begun painting in the late 80s and exhibited at Anadiel in 1994. He was close to the developments that took place in those early days and his comments about that time echo observations made by others:

In those days there were few Palestinian artists and those there were tended to be ‘state ‘artists whose work was entirely about the political cause. Politics was the reason not the art. So when Jack first talked about opening Anadiel I thought it was a crazy idea. However, when artists from outside like Mona [Hatoum], Samir [Srouji] and Nasser [Soumi] came it was fantastic. As an artist on the ground I felt that politics was not our job anymore. I was starting to focus on concepts and at that time, and with that kind of input, you felt free.

Al-Malhi and Sherwell took a completely different approach to the workshops based on the assumption that an artist has very different skills to a teacher thus the interaction with the children should be more organic than formally instructional.

Rather than ‘teaching’ as such, we saw it as artists working with children in order to get them to explore their own creativity - more explaining and facilitating than teaching.

The workshops took place over a longer period so that skills could be built up gradually which was also intended to create deeper bonds within the groups themselves:

As well as the art the point was to bring the different communities in Jerusalem into one place, so we were trying to create a social atmosphere and actually build up commonalities and cohesion among the youth in the communities. They built a very strong relationship between each other and they spent a lot of time together afterwards. The workshops always spilled over into social time.

The purpose was also psychological. Throughout the West Bank the following year, the workshops became the only outlet for children to process some of the damage done by the full scale military attacks of 2002. They were art and sculpture workshops and Al-Malhi was very clear about the purpose of them all:

To me it was to help them build a dream and in some cases to help them overcome specific psychological problems connected to the conflict. For example we did a travelling workshop which went to Jenin and Nablus and places affected by aerial attacks called ‘The Dream of Flying’ and this was to make them look up and give them confidence in the sky again. We made kites and set them flying one every minute. Taysir Bataniji did this is Gaza too.