Every year the Palestinian Cultural Center holds an exhibition with a lot of handicraft and embroidery available to purchase. But, due to the pandemic that’s been put on hold and this year instead of an exhibition, there will be a four-day shop (a pop-up).
The Palestinian Culture Center aims to support needy families and preserve the rich and vibrant culture of Palestine. It does this by encouraging ladies to continue a beautiful handicraft, embroidery, which has been in Palestine for hundreds of years and ensuring that the tradition is carried on to the younger generation.
The Center has been in operation since the early 1970’s in Kuwait and then moved to Jordan after 1990. Today, the PCC, has over 450 women from the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan working on these beautiful pieces. For these women, the payment they receive is a great support for their families. The PCC also aims at supporting education and helps various schools and education programs in Palestine as well as needy families.
As a charity organization we use a simple rule in all our pricing. Thirty-three percent of the sale cost of an item is given to the woman that produces the work, thirty-three percent goes towards covering the cost of the item, and the remaining amount is distributed to schools, orphanages and needy families mostly in Palestine.
So if you’re looking for something to do during the day, the pop-up runs from today until Wedneday. For more info check out the Palestinian Culture Center Instagram account @palestiniancc
Boom Diwan is an ensemble of traditional Kuwaiti musicians who combine Kuwaiti bahri (sea) music with global jazz. This Saturday they will be teaming up with South African jazz pianist Nduduzo Makhathini and I’ll be streaming their performance live on the blog.
Event by NYUAD Arts Center Date: Saturday, February 6th 2021 Time: 7PM Location:YouTube and Facebook
The event will take place at 7PM on Saturday so check back then for the YouTube link or, watch the stream on Facebook.
Here are more details of the event:
For this performance, Boom.Diwan will collaborate with and feature special guest pianist Nduduzo Makhathini, the first ever South African musician signed to the legendary Blue Note Records. The two will co-compose a suite that will be performed as an immersive ritual of music, the visual, and dance that takes into account ideas about the self, the community, and the spiritual in the face of modernity. The music touches on ideas of cosmopolitanism, community, dialogue, and healing.
Founded by applied ethnomusicologist Ghazi Al-Mulaifi, Boom.Diwan is a collaborative global jazz ensemble that revives the cosmopolitan tradition of the Kuwaiti pearl diving music of the Indian Ocean trade. With influences spanning Zanzibar to Calicut, improvisation, fluidity, and dialogue are at the center of Boom.Diwan.
At its core, Boom.Diwan is comprised of Al-Mulaifi on vocals, percussion, and electric guitar and members of the Mayouf Mejally Ensemble, who are the among the oldest and most widely respected pearl-diving music ensembles in Kuwait and the GCC. For this performance, they will be joined by Steven Bedford (NOON) on electric bass, and Claude Cozens on drum kit. Improvisation and cross-cultural collaborations are the foundation of Boom.Diwan’s mission.
Below is this weekend’s list of things you can do. Not as many things going on as last week, but I might have missed a few things, let me know if I did.
At the start of the pandemic, I shut down the events section since everything obviously stopped. But, a few things are starting to pop up and I’m going to start posting about them here and once things really take off, only then reopen the events section again. For now here are a few things taking place this weekend:
Since there are no live bazaars or markets this year, the annual Winter Craft Market has gone virtual. This weekend, the virtual Winter Craft Market will take place with all the vendors offering a 10% discount.
How does a virtual market work? Simple, all the vendors taking part in the Winter Craft Market are listed on the market’s Instagram account @the_craft_market_kuwait. Scroll through the account and when you find an offering you like, say maybe mugs or Christmas decorations, click through to that vendor’s account. Then you just find something you like and leave a comment or DM the vendor telling them you want it.
As a lot of the items are hand-crafted and one-off unique pieces, once they’re gone they’re gone. Please support your local artists, crafters, and small businesses and check out the market this weekend, it’s taking place on Friday and Saturday. @the_craft_market_kuwait
It’s been so long since I added an event to the events page due to the pandemic that when I tried to add this event I realized the events page wasn’t even working properly. During one of the software updates that must have occurred over the past few months, something broke and now the page isn’t even working right. But anyway, here is a pandemic-safe event you could attend, an exhibition for one of my favorite local artists that’s by appointment only, @prettygreenbullet’s out.fit exhibition:
The exhibition on from October 6 to October 13, 2020 and to ensure a safe environment for everyone it’s by appointment only.
If you’ve been following the 1MDB scandal you’re probably aware of Kuwait’s involvement. Tonight, the Kuwait Association for Protecting Public Funds (KAPPF) in cooperation with the Bar Association will be holding a virtual panel discussion on this subject via ZOOM. The discussion will be in English. Here are the details:
Participants:
Tony Pua – Member of the Parliament of Malaysia
Adel Al-Damkhi – Member of Kuwait Parliament
Sheryan Al-Sheryan – Chairman of the Kuwait Bar Association
Clare Rewcastle – Founder of Sarawak website
Xavier Justo – The “Whistleblower” of 1MDB and the former CEO of PetroSaudi
Prof. Amit Seru – Professor of Finance at Sanford University
Prof. Mohammed Altamimi – Professor of Criminal Law, Kuwait University
Adnan Abul – Deputy Chairman of the Kuwait Association for Protecting Public Funds and Secretary of the Bar Association
Due to the coronavirus, the Garden of Lights Festival that was taking place at Al Shaheed Park had to end early. So if you were planning to go to see it over the next few days then you missed out.
Al Shaheed Park have a “Garden of Lights Festival” taking place at the moment but I can’t find anything about it on their Instagram page. I think they aren’t advertising it because of the whole Corona thing but it’s on right now.
I don’t know for how long the festival is on, but last year it took place from March 5th to 15th so might be similar. If you want to check it out then you should head over to the park pretty soon before the festival ends.
Not a lot going on this weekend but there s the ABBA tribute concert taking place on Saturday which should be good. Check out the full list of this weekends events below:
Qout Market is back again this weekend but there are a few other things going on including the Kuwait Riders 10th Bike Show. Check out the full list of this weekends events below:
