Event
Jumana Emil Abboud
Open Call: The Water Diviners
- Free to participate
- Please send a short expression of interest via this form
- Open call deadline: Sunday 14 June 2026
- Workshop dates: June 26, 6:30–8:30pm; June 28, 2–6pm; July 5, 3–6pm; July 12, 3–6pm; July 24, exact time TBC
What is your water memory?
The Water Diviners is a project by artist Jumana Emil Abboud, whose wider practice explores folk tales and inhabited water sites and their communal, magical and folkloric significance.
The Water Diviners activates collective storytelling through relations with water, heritage, imagination and futurity. First developed during the artist’s 2020 residency with Sakiya in Ein Qiniya, the Occupied West Bank, the project has continued through multiple iterations, with participants contributing to a growing, transnational constellation of stories rooted in and unfolding from the story-bodies of Palestinian springs.
This workshop series is the project’s first collective, on‑site engagement with London’s waterways. Through a series of sessions, participants will work with the presence and absence of water in folklore and lived experience, engaging with London’s waterways as sites of memory, imagination and transformation. Personal stories and endangered knowledge will be brought together into collective, myth-made, water-worked tales of resilience and renewal.
The workshops will culminate in a collective performance presented as part of YDP Summer Festival on 26 July.
Jumana Emil Abboud, Water Exchange: Gazelle in a Mothers Eye, 2024, at Diriyah Biennale. Photography by MoiraRicci. Image courtesy of Jumana Emil Abboud.
Who is this for
- London residents
- Individuals interested in waterways as sites of memory, imagination and transformation
- No professional knowledge of art or writing is required
What to expect
- Take part in 5 closed-door gatherings between June and July 2026 at YDP or outdoors (See the meeting dates and location below)
- Contribute to a collective script that will form the basis of a public performance at YDP
- Opportunity to perform at the public performance (upon discussion with the artist; further fee provided)
- Small travel bursary per session for each attended session
How to join
- Please send a short expression of interest via this form, responding to the question: What is your memory of water?
- Deadline: Sunday 14 June 2026
- You will hear from us by Wed 17 June 2026
Meeting dates and venues
- Friday June 26, 6:30–8:30pm, YDP
- Sunday June 28, 2–6pm, outdoor walk and collaborative exercises (location TBC)
- Sunday, July 5, 3–6pm, YDP
- Sunday, July 12, 3–6pm, YDP
- Friday, July 24, wrap-up & rehearsal session, YDP (exact time TBC)
- Sunday, July 26, performance, Bedford Square Gardens (PM, exact time TBC)
Header image: Jumana Emil Abboud, The Water Diviners workshop, 2021, at Sakiya, Ein Qiniya. Image courtesy of Jumana Emil Abboud.
About the Artist
Jumana Emil Abboud’s creative practice explores memory, loss, and resilience across multiple strands, among them the Water Diviners project, which has seen activations in Palestine, Kassel, Dubai, New York, North Wales, London and Al Ahsa.
She has presented at major venues that included the Jameel Arts Centre, Cample Line, Documenta 15, TAVROS, Seoul Museum of Art, Darat al Funun, Bildmuseet, BALTIC, and the Biennales of Diriyah, Sydney, Venice, Qalandiya, Istanbul and Sharjah. Recognitions include the Jameel Fellowship at the Victoria & Albert Museum and shortlisting for Joan Miró and Artes Mundi 11 prizes. Abboud holds a PhD in Fine Art and is based in London.
