Kalila wa Dimna: Ancient Tales for Troubled Times was an art exhibition and public programme developed in collaboration with academic researchers, artists, curators, and community organisations. The project was inspired by the global journeys of an ancient collection of moral fables across time and place, language, religion, and culture.
Known in Arabic as Kalila wa Dimna, the fables have a long and complex history, having been translated into more than forty languages and continually reinterpreted by different audiences. The project used storytelling to explore the multiplicity of perspectives that shape human experience, recognising that there is not a single truth or world, but many.
The exhibition focused on the chapter The Tale of the Four Friends, a story about looking beyond perceived differences to work collectively in the face of adversity. Presented at P21 Gallery from 12 May to 11 June 2022, experienced and emerging artists, and community arts organisations acted as hakawatis (tellers of tales), reinterpreting the story for contemporary audiences through mixed-media works addressing identity, community, migration, and intercultural relations.
Alice Kettle contributed a stitched panel that she created in collaboration with Anna, a refugee from Syria who she came to know through her Thread Bearing Witness project. Anna and Alice stitched their panel using the phrase in the fable Kalila and Dimna, “This is the tale of how friends can help each other.” Their cross-generational friendship has become enduring through stitch, mixing their cultural heritages of textiles. Divided into four sections the piece draws upon arabesque geometry, the patterns of Syrian textiles such Damascus and Aghabani fabrics with flowers, leaves, fruit, anthropomorphised animals and birds. It interweaves these images with contemporary English embroidery to narrate the fable and their friendship.