LOVE AND NEW BEGINNINGS

PART OF OUR ONE WORLD FESTIVAL

Multi-faith storytelling, performance & craft

This event was the fourth online event in our One World Festival series, this time celebrating Chinese New Year, and the theme of love on Valentine’s Day. This event featured poetry performed by local poets, Chinese art, a talk from an Ashmolean curator, musical performances, and a mythical mask making craft activity. A full programme can be found further down this page.

WATCH IT AGAIN

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Blg1HTv-Mcg

PROGRAMME

Love Poetry Reading 3 mins

Spring Zhang, Deputy Director of the Confucius Institute at Oxford Brookes University shares two of her favourite Chinese poems, inspired by the theme of love.  

Chinese Ink Painting Demonstration 20 mins    

Distinguished artist, scholar, and poet Wang Limin from Harbin in China paints a Chinese ink painting to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Spring Songs 10 mins

Yijia Tu, Chinese singer-songwriter, ethnomusicologist, and University of Oxford MA student, performs two songs, the first inspired by last Spring's lockdown.

Curator Talk: Koganei Musashi Province 5 mins

Clare Pollard, Curator of Japanese Art at the Ashmolean talks about this beautiful woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige which shows the beginnings of Spring.

Make a Mythical Mask 15 mins

Learn how to make a ‘Mythical Mask’ with local artist Mani from Fusion Arts, inspired by an Assyrian relief of a bird-headed spirit at the Ashmolean. Fusion Arts have also created a downloadable and printable set of unstructions: Make a Mythical Mask PDF Instructions

Poetry Performance 5 mins

Syrian poet Muradi Bakir performs her poetry translated from the original Arabic, which connects to themes of love and new beginnings, displacement, and home.

All of Us Love: Oxford Rumi Study Group 10 mins 

The Oxford Rumi Study Group explore love and new beginnings through poetic text and three pieces of music, connecting to Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year.