Ramallah – A.M. Qattan Foundation
On Friday, 18 October 2019, the Educational Research and Development Program (ERDP) at A.M. Qattan Foundation organised four different workshops at its headquarters in Ramallah, within the framework of "Stories: A Journey in Imagination ... A Journey by Hand", aimed at children and adolescents.
The first workshop, entitled ‘The Story - Puppet’ supervised by the artist Abdul Salam Abdo, was attended by 15 children (7-11 years). The workshop focused on the importance of identifying the theatre of paper, through a simple workshop that transformed a story from the children’s imagination into paper dolls embodying the characters of the story.
The second workshop, entitled "The Story - Poster", was attended by a group of students from the Yasuf-Askaka School. The workshop was supervised by artist Mohamed Amos, who worked with the children to design a poster by expressing different issues and translate them visually. The workshop explored the ability of children to analyse stories and its issues, unpack and reassemble them into one visual scene in a poster.
In parallel, Dima Saqfalhait oversaw the third workshop in cinema in which 10 children participated. The children were set out to write scenarios of their own imagination and turn them into a text for a movie or scenarios for their favourite books. In both cases, the children’s scenarios provoked exciting events, and created various characters.
The last workshop, led by Bassel Nasr, children learned about the principles of animation and how to use this art as a tool in storytelling. Participants, between the ages of 12 and 15, were trained the principles of stop-motion animation through integrating drawing, movement, sound, and production, aiming to create believable characters and emotions.
After concluding the workshops, a small exhibition of children’s work and production during the workshops was organised and parent’s feedback were heard.