Where do we look for ourselves? Where are we represented? The UAE is often subject to descriptors as ‘fast paced’ and ‘transient’, terms that indicate that lives lived here are elusive, not capturable. This project will explore the importance of archival self-representation, the objects we keep and why. 

Collected Histories is a project co-founded by Hind Mezaina and Jasmine Soliman. Through public film screenings, talks and workshops, its aim is to foster discussion on personal documentation and archiving, with an ultimate goal of inspiring and supporting individuals to become ‘citizen archivists’ by cataloguing, and exploring ways to self-publish and preserve personal collections.

This event will be broken into the following sessions:

- Film Screening: Four short films focused on archives, memories, and identity followed by a short discussion between Hind Mezaina, Jasmine Soliman with audience participation.

Don’t Get Too Comfortable
Shaima Al Tamimi, 2021, Yemen, UAE, USA, Netherlands, Qatar, 9 min
Questioning the continuous pattern of movement amongst Yemenis in diaspora, the filmmaker fuses archival photographs and sourced footage, calling attention to the collective feeling of statelessness and sense of being felt by migrants.

Where Am I From? / Ana min wein?
Nouf Aljowaysir, 2022,  USA, Saudi Arabia, 13 min
The filmmaker explores her identity by tracing her childhood and family memories by constructing her genealogical journey using two different voices, her own and an AI ‘narrator’, revealing stereotypes and biases derived from its algorithmic composition.

Still Processing
Sophy Romvari, 2020, Canada, 17 min
A box of stunning family photos unseen for decades awakens lost memories as they are viewed for the first time on camera.

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing
Theo Panagopoulos, 2024, UK, 17 min
When a filmmaker of Palestinian descent based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wildflowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. The film questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.

• - Workshop: Attendees signing up to stay for the workshop will be required to bring at least one item from their personal archive, it could be family photos, letters, diaries, heirlooms.

This event is open to all, and no prior knowledge about archival practice is required.

Join us for an evening of discovery, preservation, and collective reflection.

Participants must be 16+

About the Curators / Founders:

Hind Mezaina is an artist, film curator and writer from Dubai. Her interests lie in cinema, cities, visual culture, collective memory and archives. In 2009 she founded The Culturist blog, and in 2022 she started The Culturist Film Club hosted at various venues across Dubai.
hindmezaina.com

Jasmine Soliman is an archivist and founder of RepCinema. Her work focuses on documentation, memory work, and digital accessibility - particularly through a neurodivergent lens. She is interested in vernacular and documentary photography, everyday ephemera, cinema history, and mashriq and maghreb heritage. jasminesoliman.com

About the facilitator: 

Jon Burr is an archivist specializing in cultural heritage and digital archive practices, who has helped build the Akkasah Photography Archive and al Mawrid Arab Art Archive at NYU Abu Dhabi. He has a Master’s Degree in Archives and Records Management from the University of Dundee, and his personal research relates to the preservation, digitization, accessing, and sharing of family archives.