A performer strode to the front of the wooden stage and asked the people sitting before him, “Are you coming from home? Are you coming from a place that you are living, but is not home? How many of you have a scent or taste that reminds you of home?” The 35 people in the audience were instructed to turn to a stranger near them and share something that reminded them of home.

With that first question, the audience, ranging from a pair of university students to a 60-year-old couple dressed in matching pastel pink, realized that this performance was not a one-sided act, but a communal one.

Warehouse 421’s Performance Soirée was among the 30 events, ranging from documentary film screenings to workshops on Palestinian embroidery and Emirati cooking. The Winter 2025 season runs from Jan. 22 to March 21 in Abu Dhabi.

For New York University student Thasmin Tabassoom, the Feb. 23 Soirée was the first time that she had visited 421. “When the performer was finding all the commonalities we had, it was a way for people to open up to each other,” Tabassoom said. “In New York, people would not have actually told the person next to them what home was to them. It got really loud as people were engaging. It seems that is what people come to 421 to do.”

Established ten years ago inside of a renovated warehouse, the 421 Arts Campus is a mixed-media arts center dedicated to showcasing the work of both established and emerging artists through providing grants and resources.

With the goal of making art more accessible, 421 has a gallery open to the public and curates year-round free events including film screenings, food tours, writers’ groups, performances and Ramadan events.

Themes of memory and connection were explored at the Pencil In: Writers’ Circle workshop on Feb. 20. After gallery hours, 16 writers -mostly women- gathered at a table to pass around their computers and edit each other’s work. The pieces included an Emirati’s poetry about being hospitalized for depression and a New Yorker’s short story about a woman investigating how familial influence affected her perception of gender roles in romance.

While sipping steaming pistachio lattes from the campus’ Auro Café, writers also had the choice to respond to journal prompts taped on the wall, such as: “I am writing letters and I want to send one to you because” and “Retell a story you used to hear in your childhood. Change one key attribute of the story.”

The workshop moderator, author, Purva Grover, wanted to create an environment where people feel they can tell their story openly and without judgement.

“In the arts and in writing you cannot go in alone,” Grover said. “You have to hold each other’s hand and you have to go together. This is that space.”

By expanding 421’s workshops to include more mediums, Grover believes that people can discover art in the ordinary and free themselves of the notion that they need to know about specific techniques or styles to enjoy it.

“It is important to have multiple dimensions, so people do not think art is only in museums,” Grover said.

Audiences also participated in the Stitch In for Palestine workshop, in which artist and instructor Joanna Karakat led participants through a brief history of Palestinian embroidery and taught them to cross stitch. Patterns included the outline of a gravesite from Hebron which encouraged participants to “meditate and pray for those departed souls in Gaza whose bodies have not been buried.” Additionally, participants could stitch a tatreez flower or a cypress tree to reflect Palestinian embroidery motifs, often inspired by nature and everyday surroundings.

“Especially when you’re dealing with an ancestral craft, for an instructor, it is really important to have a deep understanding of the craft because that way you can teach it ethically,” Karakat said.

Live sources:

Stitch In for Palestine instructor Joanna Karaka

Writer’s Circle moderator Purva Grover

Learning Initiatives Intern Lana Ali

Participants and students Thasmin Tabassoom and Tahmina Chowdhury

Public Programming Coordinator Nada Almosa

Communications Coordinator, Sumayya Sideek

Stitch In participant Joanna Jacob

Writer’s Circle participant Marielly Agramonte

Digital sources:

https://www.421.online/whats-on/winter-2025-program/

https://www.421.online/whats-on/abdullah-al-saadi-sites-of-memory-sites-of-amnesia/