Rising, Together

Bread is a lifeline– ‘aysh’, which means bread in Arabic, takes on the meaning of life, ‘to live’.

Join artist Issam Kourbaj to explore how, through the act of bread-making, bread can take on new meanings, as the workshop opens up a reflective and discursive space to knead and fold in a multiplicity of embodied memories and inherited tales around bread.

During the session participants will:

1. Enjoy an introduction to Urgent Archive, the current exhibition at Kettle’s Yard with artist Issam Kourbaj.

2. Create a bread stamp.

3. Use your stamp to emboss and make flat-breads using heritage grains from e5 Bakehouse.

4. Come together to reflect on the memories and tales embedded in bread, and taste your freshly baked bread over a light communal vegan homemade snack.

Allergen advice: This workshop will be using wholegrain flours and therefore not suitable for people with gluten allergies.

This workshops is organised by the Syrian Arts & Cultural Festival in close collaboration with E5 Bakehouse. The workshop takes its inspiration from Issam Kourbaj's latest exhibition, Urgent Archive that is currently on show at Kettle's Yard.

Tickets are limited due to the intimate nature of the workshop, so please book early to avoid disappointment. We have a very limited number of solidarity tickets in case you are on low/no-income and would like to attend. Get in touch with us at [email protected] - no questions asked.

Net proceeds from tickets to be donated to Gaza Sunbirds, a para-cycling team, consisting of 20 athletes, based in the Gaza Strip. They are currently distributing aid in Gaza.

Issam Kourbaj was born in Syria and trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in Damascus, the Repin Institute of Fine Arts & Architecture in Leningrad (St Petersburg) and at Wimbledon School of Art. Since 1990, he has lived and worked in Cambridge, where he has been artist-in-residence, a Bye-Fellow and a lector in Art, at Christ’s College.

Since 2011 his artwork has related to the Syrian Crisis and reflects on the suffering of his fellow Syrians and the destruction of his cultural heritage.

His work has been widely exhibited and collected, and most recently it was featured in several museums and galleries around the world: The Fitzwilliam Museum, the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; the British Museum and the V&A, London; Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; Penn Museum, Philadelphia; Brooklyn Museum, New York; the 2019 Venice Biennale and the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds.

Dark Water, Burning World is in the permanent collection of the Pergamonmuseu, Berlin, and the British Museum. For the BBC’s ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects,’ Neil MacGregor (the former Director of the British Museum) chose Dark Water, Burning World as the 101st object.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

E5 Bakehouse, 396 Mentmore Terrace, London, United Kingdom