Support the only KidFriendly Art Residency in MENA
Hunna Arts & Culture Center is the only women and mother-artist / kid-friendly art residency in the MENA region.
Since our launch in 2022, we have offered women and especially mother artists the opportunity to connect and express themselves in the presence of their children.
Hunna is located in Okaibeh, 30 minutes from Beirut, Lebanon, and has functioned as a residency home and workshop space for women & mothers in a multi-disciplinary environment. So far, we have held two consecutive 2-month residency programs for seven female artists with their five children, and over 13 workshops open to the public for women, men, and children of all ages.
If you’d like to keep amplifying the voices of women and mother artists, please help support our center.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hunna’s art residencies are fully granted by the generous support of our founder, Flavia Juska Bechhara, and donors. We provide our artists with accommodation and meals, children activities, and workshops that are cross facilitated by our residents and open to the public.
It is through these residencies that women artists and children can enhance their artistic and cultural knowledge
Hunna’s residence can accommodate visual artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, curators, painters, fashion designers, art performers, holistic practitioners, and more.
OUTREACH PROGRAM
In 2023, Hunna collaborated with Taccato, an online music teaching platform, and together we are now sponsoring three months of free piano and singing classes for four kids from Okaibeh and the neighborhood.
HUNNA ART RESIDENCY PROGRAM
The residency environment provides female artists with the time and space to focus on their projects, connect with other artists, and share their experiences amongst each other. It is also an opportunity for them to meet professional curators and cultural actors, opening doors for discovery, inspiration, and innovation.
It is Hunna's aim to eliminate the unrealistic and underlying assumption that mother artists can pause their lives to serve a residency. There is a dearth of family-friendly residency spaces in the MENA region and worldwide, which is very unfortunate.
2022 Art Residency
In our first edition of Hunna’s family-friendly (August-Sep 2022)
Hunna hosted four artists:
Caroline Hatem - Theatre Director, Actor, and Choreographer with her son Luca,
Sawsan Bou Khaled - Director, Author, and Art Performer with her son Ylan,
Yasmine Jaber - Menstrual cycle Educator and Researcher, Founder of Flower Moon Medicine-
and Dahlia Barakat - Designer and Visual Communicator with her daughter Ayana.
During this residency opening, Hunna invited multidisciplinary artist Ghinwa Yassine from Canada to implement a roundtable, where artists discussed their projects and struggles, and shared thoughts and ideas about each other's work, in addition, she led an “Art through the Body” experimental workshop combining arts and somatic movement that tapped into creativity and art concepts through journeys into the subtle body.
2023 Art Residency
In our Second edition of Hunna’s family-friendly 1.5-month residency with the support of Mophradat (March, ongoing till end of April 2023), Hunna hosted three artists:
Rima Kaddissi - Founder of PACE, and Artist Performer with her son Omar,
Chantal Mailhac - Artist Performer with her daughter Iara,
and Yal Solan - Singer, Songwriter.
During this residency, Hunna launched a spectrum of free-of-charge events and workshops facilitated by artists in residency. We produced an opening and a closing public event, three public workshops and four in-house workshops.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We’re fighting for our community of women and mothers.
If you believe in our groundbreaking and ongoing mission to provide women with space to nurture both their careers and family at the same time, then please help us continue.
