Daftar Asfar was founded on the spirit of collaboration, where participants are seen as extended family and potential future partners. Noha Al Maghafi, founder of Al Yamaniah participated in the Digital Daftar in 2019, which was an entry point for the Al Yamaniah x Daftar Asfar collaboration.
Al Yamaniah is a collective that believes in bolstering Yemen’s community of inspiring and powerful Yemeni women. Al Yamaniah was founded as an initiative that joins together a team of Yemeni women located throughout the Diaspora. With a remote set-up similar to Daftar Asfar’s, their team’s aim is to develop art and cultural projects that place Yemeni women at the center stage. They are also a hub that creates national and international links between Yemeni women, mirroring those created within their team.
Based on the collaborative structure and essence of Daftar Asfar, each artist received the same set of five prompts written and illustrated by the Daftar Asfar team. Selecting one of the prompts, artists created an artwork that is a response, intervention and expression of this prompt. This was meant to be an intuitive piece, produced in a few hours, and thought over for no longer than three days. Collectively the prompts aimed to give the artists space to demonstrate their own styles whilst also all being rooted in igniting a sense of connection between the artist and their own identity as Yemeni women.
Down the line, this project may be presented as a physical zine, but currently works will be presented digitally through both Daftar Asfar and Al Yamaniah’s platforms. The teams are discussing ways in which a physical presentation would be possible given the global pandemic’s limitations.
Check out Al Yamaniah on Instagram: @AlYamaniah