GATHERING: WOMEN OF COLOUR AND NATURE (FILM)
Gathering: Women of Colour and Nature is a short video diary and poetry film is a meditative and explorative piece of work created as the result of Durre’s Located Residency and Springboard project with National Theatre Wales. The short film explores the ways in which we define and create our identities within nature, and the safe spaces we seek out in an increasingly unsafe world. It brings together poetry, thoughts, conversations, footage and recordings by Durre and writer Kandace Siobhan Walker and invites the audience to engage and converse with them on the themes of identity, nature, belonging, landscape, and memory.
An initial screening and talk with Durre and Kandance took place at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, in March 2022. Since then, the film has been shown at various grassroots venues and festivals, such as Migration Matters Festival, Green Man Festival, and screened alongside Larry Achiampong’s film Wayfinder at Chapter. It has also been used in workshops delivered by Durre that encourage participants to explore their relationship to nature and experimental and creative ways to express that connection. Read more and watch the film here.
WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE: WASAFIRI MAGAZINE
Six-month residency at Wasafiri, an internationally renowned magazine for contemporary writing, featuring a diverse range of voices from across the UK and beyond. As part of the residency, I focused on autofiction, curating 3 workshops and as well as creating my own works for publication with Wasafiri based on my research on autofiction. The workshops were sold out and attended broadly from all over the world, inluding Malaysia, Chad, Senegal, Canada, India, Germany, the UK, and elsewhere.
The Future Wales Fellowship (2022-2023) uses art to look at the impact climate change has on everyday life. As one of the 8 Fellowship Artists, Durre will develop her own practice as a writer and artist, while also looking into the issue of climate justice.
Natural Resources Wales and Arts Council of Wales are joint partners of the Fellowship. It is part of a wider programme of work linked to a Creative Nature Memorandum of Understanding to better understand how art and culture could play a beneficial role in engaging people in key issues such as the climate and nature emergencies.
NATIONAL THEATRE WALES LOCATED RESIDENCY AND SPRINGBOARD
Women of Colour and Nature was a 2-year long project that explored the ways in which we define and create our identities within nature, and the safe spaces we seek out in an increasingly unsafe world. The project aimed to add the much-needed perspectives of women of colour to an often explored topic.
During lockdown in 2020, Durre collaborated with writer Kandace Siobhan Walker to conduct research around the topic, as well as walking the Wales Coastal Path in West Wales to develop fresh writing and ideas towards a new piece of theatre. In 2021, the project was extended into Springboard, where Durre worked with a dramaturg to hone the craft of writing a play or monologue, as well as facilitated creative conversations with women of colour.
During lockdown in 2021, Durre collaborated with photographer Leonardo Cuoto in a series of creative conversations and writing that responded to his work. This work then came together for Leonardo’s solo exhibition ‘All Paths Brought Us Here’ at Redah Art Haus, Berlin in April 2022, where Durre also performed writing inspired by his work. The performance was supported by Wales Arts International.
NATURE AND US POET IN RESIDENCE
Poets Durre Shahwar and Elan Grug Muse were selected to creatively responded to Natural Resources Wales’ Wales-wide campaign on the future of Wales’ natural environment. Supported by Literature Wales, the poets in residence attended a selection of national events, as well as ran creative workshops with farmers in North Wales and people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups in Cardiff to gather their thoughts about the future of the environment in Wales. They are now creating poetic responses to the sessions to be shared widely across Wales later in 2022.
GLYNN VIVIAN GALLERY: ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Durre was an Artist in Residence at Glynn Vivian Art Gallery between 2018-2019. During this time, she developed her practice, spent time with the collections and the Phytopia (Tree of Life) exhibition, delivered a workshop and gave a talk. She produced writing in response that was compiled into a small pamphlet and performed at Glynn Vivian at Night.
BBC WRITERSROOM WALES: WELSH VOICES COHORT
Durre was part of the 2018/2019 development programme, attending masterclasses, talks, workshops by industry professionals on writing, getting into TV, film, scripts, and more. At the end of the programme, the cohort was commissioned to write a monologue that was performed by a voice actor and recorded. You can listen to Durre’s monologue on mental health here.
Where I’m Coming From was an open mic collective co-founded by Durre Shahwar and Hanan Issa to platform and support underrepresented writers within the Wales’ literary and arts scene. It was the first of its kind and their activities involved monthly open mic nights, mentoring, workshops, events, and collaborations with various organisations such as National Museum Cardiff, Artes Mundi, Hay Festival, Literature Wales, G39, and more, in order to bridge the gap between communities and organisations. Since 2021, the collective has been on a hiatus due to the COVID pandemic.
HUNANIAITH
Hunan-Iaith is a bilingual project between Where I’m Coming From collective & Y Stamp magazine that aims to bridge the gap between language and translation in our communities. It aimed to shed light on words like micoraggression, and how they may translate to Welsh and the contexts around that. It started out with a weekend at Ty Newydd full of translation exercises, workshops on cynghanedd and Golden Shovel poems. The group came away with a list of outcomes including a bilingual pamphlet of work, a bilingual open mic, a glossary of terms relating to POC translated into Welsh.
Writers at Work is a fully programmed week to allow selected writers to attend masterclasses, workshops, and to network with UK and international writers, publishers, press and agents. The unique gathering of the publishing industry that takes place at Hay Festival nurtures selected writers to create new work, increase confidence, skills, and to form peer group support. It takes place during the Hay Festival. Durre was part of the programme in 2018.
NATIONAL THEATRE WALES: SISTERS
Sisters was an all-female work-in-progress by leading British South Asian artists aimed to hold a mirror up to life as a South Asian woman today, wherever she lives; the echoes and the contradictions, the (in)visibility and comradeship, all told with playfulness, honesty and humour.
Sisters was part of India Wales, a major season of artistic collaboration between the two countries to mark the UK-India Year of Culture and is supported by British Council Wales, the Arts Council of Wales and Wales Arts International.
Durre was a Community Associate for the project, reaching out and having conversations with South Asian women and communities as part of the creative work.