Listen to this story as it was recorded for WKNC’s Eye on the Triangle:
In a time when seniors Mohammad Moussa and Sameer Abdel-khalek could be focusing on the end of their college careers, they’re focused on a different journey. Along with two poets, Moussa and Abdel-khalek are putting the final touches on a travel schedule that will take them into conflict-heavy areas of the Middle East.
They’re not going to raise arms, or join the fight. They’re going to create art.
The group are members of “Poetic Portraits of a Revolution,” whose mission is to visit areas of Egypt and Tunisia to record the stories of the self-determined people behind the movements in each country. Using photography, video and poetry, the four will spend a month in each country to document the lives of the people with which they interact, according to Moussa.
The trip is two-fold, with the group visiting Egypt in June, Tunisia in July, and returning to the United States in early August. According to Moussa, they hope to have compiled poetry, photographs, video and material to broadcast over the radio while abroad.
Moussa, senior in electrical engineering, is the interpreter for the group. He said he joined because he speaks Arabic.
“They needed a translator and interpreter for the locals, and I speak Arabic,” Moussa said. “I wanted to get involved.”
Abdel-khalek, senior in environmental technology, will be the chief photographer for the project. Abdel-khalek said he thinks capturing their interactions on film is crucial.
“First and foremost, photography is such a unique element, and it allows you to see something that has happened in the world in a different way than you normally see things documented,” Abdel-khalek said. “I love that we’re meshing multiple art forms to showcase what’s going on over there.”
Will McInerney and Kane Smego are the poets who cultivated the idea for the trip with the group’s Empowerment Project. The pair are directors of Sacrificial Poets, North Carolina’s youth poetry organization, located in Chapel Hill, and the first internationally competing youth performance poetry team in the state.
“After doing four or five years of work in the community with the Sacrificial Poets, we realized this was an opportunity to extend our community awareness with this project,” McIerney said. ”I’ve been to the Middle East, and realized what a fusion with spoken word and academic work would bring to the community to tell this story.”
According to Abdel-khalek, they chose Egypt and Tunisia because their conflicts have had relatively low violence, and they had heavy media coverage.
“These two were the most heavily media covered areas besides Lybia, and our project is to see the underground element compared to what the media says,” Abdel-khalek said. “What an independent group researched and what is going on over there from an unbiased small group.”
The Empowerment Project will broadcast from both countries to WUNC, and save the rest of the material they gather for their return trip. Once they’re home they’ll embark on a tour, showcasing their work, showing the stories of the people who have been affected by these conflicts.
The type of poetry they’ll be writing will reflect the flow of the stories.
“Spoken word poetry is a mixture of a creative writing and performance art. It has all the main devices and main elements that formal poetry has, but we don’t write within a specific form or structure, so no sonnets etc.,” McInerney said.
The group will be partnering with many local organizations upon arrival. They learned of the organizations through friends or word of mouth.
“Some contacts we know directly, others we know through friends. We know all of them through second or third degrees of friendship, and they’re all well known humanitarian organizations in the region,” Moussa said.
To pay for the trip the group has done expensive fundraising. Recently, they held one in Riddick Hall with forty to fifty attendees.
“We advertised it through Facebook, Twitter, and word-of-mouth. It had a great response, everyone was excited about our plans for the showcase upon our return, the energy was exciting and they were responsive in the fundraising. We haven’t reached our goal as far as funding goes; it’s not just getting us there and sustaining us while there but once we get back it’s to help us spread the word of what we learned,” Abdel-khalek said.
According to McInerney, the group is excited and hopes their project will be eye-opening for those at home.
“We’re still reacting to this event in the world, it’s pressing now, if we don’t go now we won’t get it,” McInerney said.
