Events

Event details

Led by writer Barrak Alzaid, Mizna co-presents an interactive and embodied writing workshop focused on our relationship to the environment, with a special focus on the ecology and geopolitics of the Persian Gulf.

Read the full description and FAQ here.

This event takes place on Friday March 10, 5-6:45at Pipsqueak, 173 16th Ave, Seattle.

Space is limited to 20 participants. RSVP REQUIRED

About the Workshop

“Imagination is one of our most powerful tools. What we imagine, we can become.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

This workshop will bring together writers imagining other ways of being in the world and relating to one another. We will focus on issues pertaining to extractive capitalism, labor, and our environment in relation to specific places in our realm of experience.

How do the forces of capitalism exert control on our present and our futures? 

How do we, as writers, sustain hope, gratitude and joyful world making in the face of extractive capitalism?

My newest project is set in the oil producing Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, and ties the politics of oil back to the US. It cuts a path through Gulf Futurism, which focuses on extractive capitalism in the Gulf countries.

I’m interested in pushing it a step further to reveal the precarity of extractive capitalism and create a platform for the human labor co-opted as fuel for the insatiable development of these Arab nations of the Gulf, while also using the Persian Gulf as a node that imagines other forms of connection among the peoples sharing this land and sea.

At the same time I am interested in looking back to the past and heritage as a way of recuperating our convivial ways of relating to each other and our environment. 

I want to connect with other writers whose work dovetails with the speculative or futurist mode. Let’s explore, together, the ways we as writers can confront extractive capitalism and its effects on ourselves, our communities, and our environment. 

Writing does not need to be a solitary experience. In this workshop, I share an embodied and collaborative approach to writing that invites us to co-create a shared library of literal and abstract gestures, images, and words. Each of us will come away from this workshop inspired to generate more work, and feel a deeper connection to our planet, each other, and ourselves.

This workshop is aimed at attendees of the Big Writing Conference taking place in Seattle, however all are welcome.

How:

This 90 minute workshop will use devised theater and improv theater games to create an inviting and joyful setting to explore important issues around climate change, resource scarcity, and our relationship to the planet.

Health & Safety Information:

Masks are required, please avoid fragrances to help make the space safer for people with allergies and sensitivities. Please inform us of any accessibility needs you may have, and we will do our best to accommodate them.

The devised theater exercises may include movement and touch. To maintain a safer space for participants, I will adapt exercises for a range of mobility and bodily capacities. I will prioritize participants’ safety, wellbeing and agency by setting norms for seeking permission and consent from one another.