Oracle Seed Dumpling: East & Southeast Asian-focused (ESEA) Workshop with Yarli Allison
Saturday 18 March
1:30 - 3:30pm
Limited to 20 but walk-ins welcome
(prioritising bookings & ESEA people)
Free & open to all
Bringing together Asia-Art-Activism (AAA) and Sheffield-based people of East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) heritage at Bloc Projects, the workshop Oracle Seed Dumplings celebrates AAA’s first publication, ‘Asia-Art-Activism: Experiments in Care and Collective Disobedience’ (and join us for the book launch afterwards). The workshop extends conversations from the book on queering history, creating safe spaces and collective memories via the sharing of oral histories.
Facilitated by acclaimed artist Yarli Allison, the workshop is a fun and safe space for restorative conversations and making, using our shared ESEA histories as a starting point. We will be led through a drawing session inspired by oracle bone scripts—an ancient form of characters engraved on animal bones—which would then be used in the making of ‘seed dumplings’. These may in turn be gifted or sowed in solidarity.
By grafting language into symbols, we hope to travel beyond the limitations of words and cultural barriers to nurture personal and collective memories for greater mutual understanding.
Use your English, Sinopheric as well as imagined pictographs (or a mix of both!) to germinate hopeful possibilities of homes, favourite dishes and letters to your future self.
Turn words into future growth, literally.
Documentation images: Bob Gilbert.
Yarli Allison (she/they) - a Canadian-born, Hong Kongese art-worker based in the UK/Paris with an interdisciplinary approach that traverses sculpture, installation, CGI (VR/AR/3D modeling/game), moving-images, drawings, poetry, tattooing, and performances. Current themes include digital humanities, border systems and datafication, along with skinships and affect. Yarli’s recent works (2021-22) were exhibited at Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong), LINZ FMR (Austria), FACT (Liverpool), Barbican Centre (London), Institute of Contemporary Arts: ICA (London), V&A Museum (London).
Supported by the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield and Bloc Projects.