As Told by The Land: Traces & Memory

July 2 – 30, 2026

Every Thursday 

4:00 pm – 8:00 pm 

Traces & Memory invites children to explore things that shape their everyday lives, from family traditions to stories passed down generations.

Sessions:

Texture Harvest Zine

by the Learning Team
Thursday, July 2nd
4-8pm

This workshop encourages young explorers to document cherished memories through a more intentional lens. Using the skill of frottaging, participants are asked to trace and collect different textures around Hayy Jameel, and turn them into a zine as a form of preservation.

The Explorers Book Club

by The Rabyah Reading Project
Thursday, August 13th
4-8pm

The Explorers Book Club is a collaboration with The Rabyah Reading Project that combines engaging book readings with a hands-on art activity inspired by its story to encourage literacy in young readers. The Rabyah reading project is an Arabic language led programme, with an objective to develop children’s emotional & cognitive skills through reading and play.

Sand Wonderscapes: Landscapes in Motion

by Tala Qari
Thursday, July 23rd
4-6:30pm

Inspired by Mona Hatoum’s + and -, children explore the idea that landscapes are never truly fixed but are constantly shaped through movement, repetition, and time. Participants begin by sculpting a smooth sphere from a soft, malleable material such as air-dry clay, natural clay, or homemade salt dough. Using the sphere as a drawing tool, they create temporary patterns and traces in sand through rolling, spinning, and guided movement. The workshop encourages open-ended experimentation while introducing key themes from the exhibition, including movement, mapping, transformation, traces, and impermanence. Through this tactile process, children discover how simple gestures can produce ever-changing landscapes, where the emphasis lies not on a finished artwork but on exploration and continuous change.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore movement as a tool for drawing and mark-making.
• Observe how repetition and simple gestures can produce complex patterns.
• Experiment with cause and effect through material exploration.
• Develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
• Understand impermanence as part of the creative process.
• Experience process-led artmaking where experimentation is valued over finished outcomes.
  

Edge of Visibility

by Tala Qari
Thursday, July 30th
4-6:30pm

Inspired by Heba Y. Amin’s exploration of camouflage, concealment, and perception, Edge of Visibility invites children to investigate how colour, pattern, and texture shape the way we see the world. Looking at butterflies and other plants and animals that naturally blend into their environments, participants discover how camouflage functions as both a survival strategy in nature and a visual language in art.

Children begin by selecting a habitat before designing and painting a butterfly, carefully considering how its colours, patterns, and textures interact with its surroundings. Through observation and experimentation, they explore how small artistic choices can transform the relationship between an object and its environment.

The workshop concludes with a playful observation challenge as a facilitator, taking on the role of a bird, searches for the butterflies hidden throughout the landscape. Together, participants reflect on how colour, pattern, and environment influence perception, asking: How does our environment shape what we see? How can an object become part of its environment?

Through this hands-on exploration, children develop a deeper understanding of perception, adaptation, and the relationship between living things and their habitats while experimenting with composition, colour theory, and pattern-making.