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99 Clay Vessels: The Muslim Women Storytelling Project

Alison Kysia
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Wednesdays at the Center

In a Wednesdays at the Center virtual event, multimedia artist and grassroots educator Alison Kysia shares a socially engaged art project she created called 99 Clay Vessels: The Muslim Women Storytelling Project. After a prolonged experience of anti-Muslim bigotry, she created a series of 99 pinch pots that represent the 99 names of God in Islam, symbolizing the diversity of all encapsulated in the One. This multimedia art and storytelling project centers stories of Muslim women healing from experiences of bigotry during 9/11 era. The stories are accompanied by visual art, vocal recitation, and poetry, culminating in a website which serves as an online art exhibition, healing resource, publicly accessible learning tool, and historical archive. As we commemorate the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 in September, this project asks us to rethink the call to Never Forget by expanding the possibility of what we choose to remember.

Alison Kysia is a multimedia artist whose work centers Muslims, Islam, and Islamophobia. As a resident artist at Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, she is creating a series of artwork about the impacts of the 9/11 era on Muslims and other targeted communities.

This event is sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Center, the Duke University Center for International and Global Studies, and the Duke Islamic Studies Center. If you require closed captioning for this event, please contact Meredith Watkins (mw390@duke.edu).