Each day walking down to the jetty at the mouth of the Karuah River, we imagined the water stretching to Bilad el Sham, the levant. Breathing deep our souls expanded far from Worimi country all the way home.
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| Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas, Gunyah residency, 2025 |
On our first morning we walked to Hero’s Beach. Could we swim through the rivers and oceans to the land of our ancestors? The water’s temperature was Mediterranean, a sign to heed.
We collected rocks, sticks and shells to rub, wanting to continue a practice in archiving, planning and dreaming. Maissa’s exploration in how we remain and how we connect.
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| Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas, Gunyah residency, 2025 |
At night Katie tried to teach Maissa tatreez, Palestinian cross stitch. The motifs tie us to land. At Gunyah, we decide that Ward el Sham, damascene rose, motif of Bilad el Sham ties us to each other. Katie stitched it on everything - a handmade fisherman’s hat from Tripoli, a rubbing of single waraq areeshi, vine leaf. Charcoal rubbings of tatreez brings us closer.
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| Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas, Gunyah residency, 2025 |
In our afternoons, we returned to the jetty. Wearing our thobes we talked about the boats bobbing on the river. Could we sail through the rivers and oceans to the land of our ancestors? We know our people's trade routes connected them with our city’s ports. We imagined roots.
Maissa filmed our imagined return.
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| Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas, Gunyah residency, 2025 |
At Gunyah we rolled waraq enab together. The leaves picked from the grape vines growing wild in our migrant backyards half an hour away from each other. We argued about everything; the rice stuffing, the same way we argued about how to make fool medames, a poor people’s dish of fava beans from the Arab world. We laughed and made up over videos for a future tiktok influencer project coming out soon.
Could we just earn enough money to fly over the rivers and oceans to the land of our ancestors?
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| Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas, Gunyah residency, 2025 |
Katie wrote a poem in English about our time at Gunyah.
Maissa responded with writing in Arabic language and turned it into a song, a secret for now because she needs money to pay a producer, another project.
Maissa’s niece, an artist and a musician, visited with her partner, a Yuin man. While Jace spent time feeding us off the land and waters, fishing and collecting oysters. Tamara and Maissa tried their hand at composing songs from words sewn together from Katie’s poem.
We returned to our family homes with a big pot of waraq enab to share with our loved ones, and a plethora of ideas to work on together and make reality. After some rest comes revolution. Free Palestine. ..."
Gunyah residency report, February 2025
You're only half an hour away
Maissa Alameddine & Katie Shammas
