‘I needed to see tales about our expertise’: For 25 years Mizna has helped artists make cultural connections


At a dance studio in Minneapolis just lately, Leila Awadallah mirrored on what Mizna means to her. 

“When I discovered Mizna, that’s once I unlocked this portal into this lovely world of Arab Individuals and of tales from nations that I longed to know deeper,” Awadallah stated. 

The choreographer and dancer is half white, half Palestinian and grew up in South Dakota. 

She’s one of many many artists who say they’ve discovered a spot of belonging and cultural connection by means of Mizna.

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Mizna's publication covers are displayed

Mizna’s workplace is situated on College Avenue in St. Paul.

Kerem Yücel | MPR Information

Kathy Haddad and Saleh Abudayyeh based Mizna within the late ‘90s as a platform for modern literature, movie, artwork and cultural manufacturing — highlighting the work of Arab, Southwest Asian and North African, or SWANA artists.

Its cornerstone occasion is the annual Arab Movie Competition. 

Because the group marks its twenty fifth anniversary within the Twin Cities, Haddad seems to be again on what motivated her to begin all of it. 

“I needed to see tales about our expertise, about my expertise. I learn, and was impressed by Asian American writers, African American writers and plenty of writers. And I didn’t see any Arab American writers,” Haddad stated.

A person poses for a portrait

Lana Barkawi, government and creative director of Mizna.

Kerem Yücel | MPR Information

Mizna Government and Inventive director Lana Barkawi is Palestinian and joined the group in 2011. She says the group has performed a crucial position in connecting creatives to their cultural identification.

“The issues that motivated the institution of the group nonetheless maintain true in the present day that we exist in a cultural context that marginalizes us and actually, you realize, bins us into stereotyped concepts of who we’re,” Barkawi stated. 

Since its founding, Mizna, the Arabic phrase for ‘a desert cloud that holds the promise of rain,’ has featured greater than a thousand Arab and SWANA writers in its literary journal each domestically and internationally. 

A person poses for a portrait

Marlin M. Jenkins, trainer and author.

Kerem Yücel | MPR Information

A type of writers is Marlin M. Jenkins — a half Lebanese, half Black author and highschool English trainer who’s been printed by Mizna.

“I believe Mizna has actually helped me discover that I believe there’s plenty of what I’ve discovered about myself and in regards to the world of what it means to be from Southwest Asia that wasn’t capable of come from my instant household. Numerous that comes by means of the humanities, particularly by means of writing and poetry,” Jenkins stated. 

Awadallah says she was visiting household within the Palestinian city of Beit Jala within the occupied West Financial institution in October however needed to go away and are available again to the U.S. 

A person poses for a portrait

“When I discovered Mizna, that’s once I unlocked this portal into this lovely world of Arab Individuals and of tales from nations that I longed to know deeper,” Leila Awadallah stated. 

Kerem Yücel | MPR Information

She says she feels her physique continues to be in her ancestral land. A latest efficiency for Mizna helped join her to the a part of herself that’s nonetheless in Palestine. 

“My physique began coming again and my voice began coming again and I used to be held by the Mizna neighborhood and so many others, the room was so filled with people who find themselves simply prepared, you realize, to sob and to let the sentiments be actual collectively,” Awadallah stated.

Barkawi says occasions have been exceptionally powerful for the group and its artists. 

“Properly, you realize, we’re marking our anniversary, and it feels troublesome to be in a really celebratory temper as a result of we’re witnessing a shattering and grotesque cruelty in Gaza,” she stated.

Art materials seen displayed on the wall

Kathy Haddad and Saleh Abudayyeh based Mizna within the late Nineteen Nineties as a platform for modern literature, movie, artwork and cultural manufacturing.

Kerem Yücel | MPR Information

Her hope is that she not feels the necessity to emphasize a heightened significance of the group’s work. 

“We’re greater than our traumas, we’re greater than the portrayals of us,” Barkawi stated.

She says the aim is to reclaim narratives and inform tales with out all the time responding to tragedy, and to create an unburdened place for artists to create work on their very own phrases. 

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