Announcement: MFTW is participating in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C.

On February 26, 2022March 4, 2022 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

With great pleasure the Mangroves from the Water exhibition will be a part of the United Arab Emirate pavilion at the upcoming Smithsonian Folklife Festival to be held at the National Mall, the park in the heart of the capital of the United States surrounded by the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC.

The 2022 Smithsonian Folklife Festival will showcase the UAE, participating for the first time, along with the program Earth Optimism x Folklife highlighting community-based conservation. The festival will open on 22 June and close on 4 July, taking place over two weeks. Events are free to the public and typically draw more than 600 000 visitors.

UAE Program Snapshot

United Arab Emirates: Living Landscape | Living Memory will explore the cultural traditions that emerge from Emirati experiences of migration and survival in close connection with land and sea. At the same time, the program will be forward-looking and highlight visions for a diverse, sustainable future. The program is organised around three thematic clusters: Belonging, Place, and Creativity. Engaging in majlis sessions on key topics, participants have the opportunity to share their experiences as artists, tradition-bearers and cultural experts.

Approximately 85 invited participants and presenters will make up the UAE delegation, representing a broad range of cultural heritage skills and knowledge. This will be the first time that the UAE has been represented at the Festival, as well as the first Arab country since 2005. The program curation is based on collaborative research. We highly value the cooperation with many individuals and entities that make rich, accurate Festival programs possible.

The program team is lead by co-curators Michele Bambling and Rebecca Fenton, along with program coordinator Pablo Molinero Martinez.

For more information about the Smithsonian Festival, please open this link.

Zahidah Zeytoun Millie, Artist

www.zahidahart.com

‘Mangroves from the Water’ founder & curator

The Enviro Hero Biography Program features curator and founder Zahidah Zeytoun Millie

On January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

We are happy to share a biography written about the founder of the Mangroves from the Water (MFTW) by Thomas D, a Grade 4 school student of The Geelong College. The biography was part of the Enviro Hero biography program supported by three teachers, one of whom is John Henderson, Thomas’ teacher. The aim of the program was to teach students about their surrounding environment and the local people who help the environment.

We think the Enviro Hero biographies program was successful and the students learned a lot about their environment, how to write a biography and how to get environmentally active in the future.

We thank The Geelong College for running the Enviro Hero biographies program and for the book that holds copies of all the biographies. We thank the teacher John, and his student Thomas for his beautiful written and portrait work.

Finally, we’d love all schools to add such a program to their curricula. Please download the files below to see the students’ reflections on the Enviro Hero biographies program.

Zahidah Zeytoun Millie

Founder and Curator

students-reflections_what-are-we-learning Download

biography_zahidahzeytounmillie_bythomas_nov21 Download

Development of UAQ Mangrove beach

On December 9, 2021March 13, 2023 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

Artists have always been the inspiration for new ideas that business people take for granted.

The Mangroves from the Water art campaign was born in the UAE emirate of Umm Al Quwain, starting with a touring exhibition (2015-2016) and a festival in 2017. We are happy and proud to see the fruits of our touring artworks.

Kerr E ( 5^th December 2021) Zanzibar- Inspired Restaurant Mikoko Hut Opens at UAQ Mangrove Beach, What’s On.ae, accessed December 9 2021.

Here are some images of the cleaned up area leading towards the new developed beach..

Zahirah Zeytoun Millie

Curator

CCCNN covers the Mangroves from the Water exhibition

On September 4, 2021 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

Thank you to CCCNN – Climate Change Communication and Narratives Network – for highlighting the Mangroves from the Water exhibition in Geelong held in August and recognizing our founder and curator Zahidah Zeytoun Millie (member).

Please view their website to see the post and read all about the CCCNN’s mission and the wonderful work they do.

About the CCCNN:

Network focus

The Climate Change Communication and Narratives Network (CCCNN) seeks to complement existing climate change-related research activity at Deakin, critically focusing on the politics and practices of climate change narration and communication in a time of climate emergency.

This includes analysis of the assumptions, intentions, strategies and tools of climate change narration and communication – or broadly, storytelling – in public contexts and by stakeholders invested in the structural and imaginative changes required to mitigate climate change.

There are many assumptions about what storytelling is, how it’s done, and what works, in climate change communication. This is reflected in an increasing ubiquity of ‘stories’ in organisational responses to climate change, focused on public engagement.

As a network, we aim to explore nuanced, critically formed ways of thinking about storytelling and its capacities. We ask what is best practice in climate change communication that draws on this nuance and how is climate change communication being done, what are its limits, and who does it exclude? How can climate communication strategies innovate to engage with diverse demographics and multiple communities?

An outward-facing imperative

Our imperative is outward facing: scientists tell us we have less than ten years to avert the worst impacts of climate change. What we need now is real-world action and effective change.

We aim to contribute to climate change action and mitigation beyond the rhetorical and theoretical, while still interrogating our own knowledges, practices and histories within the academy, and contributing generatively to these.

Video of the Mangroves from the Water exhibition opening

On August 21, 2021August 31, 2021 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

We are so excited to share this video capturing the official opening of our Mangroves from the Water exhibition, 14 August, Gordon Gallery, Geelong.

To view the complete video, please visit our Mangroves from the Water YouTube page.

A huge thank you to Phil Hines for all the photography on the day, and creating this video.

Here is a shorter version giving a quick overview of the show:

The reveal ! – monoprint workshop with Nicola

On August 18, 2021 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

Nicola Cerini led a monoprint workshop in the Gordon Gallery, in front of her beautiful printed linen artworks.

Monoprint is an easy instant and one-off original printing process and we highly recommend you try your hand at this technique.

A rough interpretation of the technique: The participants use various coloured ink on a plate (usually a simple piece of glass), and introduce various ways of mark-making from scratching to drawing directly into the ink. Thereafter, paper is placed on top and the ink is transferred by rolling with a brayer (this could be done with strong hands or even a spoon, but even pressure is advised). Peel the paper off the plate, and reveal the masterpiece!

Here are a couple of images of the reveals, and the process…

Look at the dancers at Jacqui’s workshop

On August 18, 2021 By Stephanie Neville1 Comment

Jacqui Dreessens, from Wild Moves International, led a fabulously fun interpretive dance and movement workshop in conjunction with her live dance and video performance titled Echelons (2021) at the Mangroves from the Water exhibition. During the official opening day on Saturday 14 Aug, the participants followed her instructions to feel inspired by nature and mangroves to experience, interpret and become at one with nature.

Unfortunately a few participants had to remain in lockdown, but do spot out very own curator Zahidah busting some cool moves!

Mangroves from the Water Exhibition photos

On August 17, 2021August 22, 2021 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

It’s with great pleasure that we are able to share these images with you from our official opening on Saturday 14 August 2021.

Thanks to the Gordon Gallery, the City of Greater Geelong, Sharjah Institute of Heritage, , the Barwon Estuary Project and Humans of Geelong for their support in realising this show.

The opening began with a Welcome to Wadawurrung Country by Elder Nikki McKenzie, supported by Norm Stanley on the didgeridoo; a ceremony we all acknowledged as befitting the themes and depth of our project and our regard for the mangrove landscape.

We were honoured that Libby Coker MP officially opened the event and we’re grateful for her important words and interest in our project.

Curator Zahidah Zeytoun Millie acknowledged the support of our partners and introduced the work of our 13 artists, all focused on raising awareness of the beauty and importance of mangroves.

To Peter Martin, thank you for presenting the opening oration so eloquently.

The afternoon gave our 50 visitors (we were restricted by Covid 19!) a fascinating range of perspectives that included a human element in addition to the multi media artwork. Choreographic artist Jacqui Dreessens performed a sensorial interpretation of mangroves in dance with video, and Richard Collopy presented a passionate talk on a traditional owner’s perspective of mangroves. Viewers were enthralled by the depth of thought and detail presented in the multi media Mangroves from the Art exhibition.

We are very grateful to everyone who came out to support us, especially during this difficult time with lockdowns. We were sad to miss a few of the artists not being able to attend – some stuck locally (Nicola Cerini and Kerrie Taylor), and some abroad (Geraldine Chansard in Belgium, Stephanie Neville in the UAE and Alexis Gambis in France).

Credit for all images goes to photographer Phil Hines. Our thanks to MC Daniel Zeytoun Millie.

Libby Coker MP, Richard Collopy, Deb Taylor, Zahidah Zeytoun Millie, Helen Martin, Enrico Santucci

The beautiful paintings of Helen Martin

On August 6, 2021August 5, 2021 By Stephanie NevilleLeave a comment

The beautiful paintings of Helen Martin conveys a touching fondness for her husband by translating his deep-rooted connection to the mangroves, Her skill as a painter is evident in the atmospheric depictions of mangrove trees as seen in the images below, manifesting the vibrancy and liveliness through brush strokes and play of light.

Helen’s artist statement:

For the Mangroves from the Water Exhibition, Helen is collaborating with her husband Peter Martin, who has a deep affinity with mangroves having grown up playing and exploring them on the shore in front of his family home at Peek’s Point, East Gosford in New South Wales – on Darkinjung Country.

Her works for the exhibition draw on recent images of a small stand of white mangroves planted in the early 1960s by the five Martin boys at shoreline of Broken Bay. These young boys were motivated to plant mangrove seedlings they had found nearby in response to the degradation and destruction of the local mangroves, their playground, caused by unabashed urban development. The mangroves were seeded in the rocky foreshore among the clusters of native oysters, and over the past 50 years thrived, creating a new habitat.