About
“I often feel I am trapped inside someone else’s imagination, and I must engage my own imagination in order to break free. […] This is a time-travel exercise for the heart. This is collaborative ideation – what are the ideas that will liberate us all?”
adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
Awraq Festival is a platform for collective ideas and collaborative action, founded by Sabrin Hasbun in partnership with Bristol’s Palestine Museum.
Liberation and justice (in their absolute meaning – from individual empowerment to social, economical, and environmental decolonisation) should not be unattainable ideals, but constant movements we generate together. The festival wants to be a space where we discuss and apply the power of creativity, community organisation, and collective meaning-making toward the imagination and the actualisation of alternative futures.
Through workshops, talks, artistic expressions, and interactive activities, we would like to see the participation and contributions of as many people as possible. This festival hasn’t been going for long so we will learn a lot and there is no better way to learn together – organisers, participants, speakers – so we will also shape this festival as a way to think about and organise for our future festivals so that it responds to all our needs and dreams.
Finally, in view of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the occupation of all Palestine, the festival is dedicated mainly to Palestinian voices and their allies in the deep belief that the liberation of Palestine is an essential step in the liberation of the whole world.
Whether you’re an activist, artist, thinker, writer or someone who wants change, Awraq Festival welcomes you to be part of this transformative movement. Explore our program, participate in discussions, share your ideas, and collaborate with people who are committed to liberate us all.
Bristol's Palestine Museum
Established in 2013 and run solely by volunteers, Bristol’s Palestinian Museum is a registered charity dedicated to exploring Palestinian culture, heritage, and daily life. Rooted in a desire to educate and inform, the museum continues to grow, driven by a commitment to amplifying Palestinian voices and narratives. The museum communicates the Palestinian history through exhibitions, talks, films, and seminars, fostering dialogue and understanding.
Sabrin Hasbun
Dr Sabrin Hasbun is a Palestinian-Italian transnational writer. She has always had to mediate between cultures and every day for her is a journey across borders.
Sabrin believes in the extremely generative power of collective creation and action and her research focuses on collaborative practices to explore histories of marginalised groups and decolonisation strategies. She has recently worked as writer, editor, translator, and trainer for several institutions around the world and published articles, both individual and collaborative, about collective creation in communities. She now works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Cardiff Met university, specialising in writing for liberated imaginations and alternative futures.
Crossing, Sabrin’s family memoir about displacement told through the love shared between her Italian mother and Palestinian father, was awarded the Footnote x Counterpoints Writing Prize and will be published in May 2025.
