MAJLES
2020 - 2021
A collection of 10 scores initially developed for a monthly year-long embodied sound + movement workshop series from 2020 - 2021. The 2020-2021 MAJLES is made possible with support from the California Arts Council - Artists In Communities program in partnership with Arab.AMP, based on Asgary's research and open public workshops. As a curriculum, MAJLES is also offered as a course and is currently taught as a graduate seminar at California College of the Arts.
The collection of scores continues to grow both as variations and new iterations, as the scores continue to expand, shift, and adapt to the places of our times.
MAJLES is a series of sound, silence, and movement-based workshops, audience participatory scores, and collective reflections that seek to build new governance through individual creativity in relationship to each other. Developed through year-long experimentation with sound and movement, each Majles session is generated from a score that situates the body as a site of knowledge, enacting movement and voice from and within the physical place they occupy to explore complex relationships to space.
“Majles” is an Arabic and Persian term that translates to council, which can imply government, mourning, or celebration, and in this context, refers to the creative contract as a form of decentralized governance. MAJLES includes transdisciplinary collaborations with other programs, collectives, and beings.
The documentation on this page is small excerpts from the 2020-2021 MAJLES that met online every third Thursday, comprising 10 scores corresponding to 10 archived sound and video libraries.
MAJLES is premised based on the following:
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It is up to us to find a foundation that we can build as individuals in relation to each other.
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An autonomous space.
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Abstract foundation-building prompts.
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In the interest of self-organization and self-determination as a diaspora.
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Governance as a new contract.
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A response to the lack of government care.
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Seeks new governance over individual creativity.
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It is not up to external MAJLES from either the home or tribal sense, but up to us to find a foundation that we can build as individuals in relation to each other.
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A foundation outside of larger governmental structures, capitalism, etc. that has no interest in providing foundations for people.
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MAJLES sessions are participant-centered and free.
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MAJLES seeks and builds collectively.
For the recording of the Majles Panel + Screening, in conversation with Abou Farman on June 13, 2021, and the premiere of two sound video works, go here.
MAJLES has received generous support and has been presented by:
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California Arts Council Artists in Communities Grant with Arab.AMP (2020-2021)
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Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR (2023)
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Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA (2022-2023)
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Center for Book Arts, New York, NY (2021)
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Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA (2021)
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VR Art Camp x Beauty Supply Arts, Oakland, CA (2021)
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Temescal Art Center, Oakland, CA (2020-2021)
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