PORTFOLIO

Concordia University, Montreal (Quebec) Canada

Writing in the ‘contact zone’: A polyphonic digital memoir about Jews from Egypt, is a practice based research-creation doctoral research project that explores ways of remembering and the relationship between self, materiality, cultural memory and the formation of diaspora identities. Through processes of textual, audio and visual remediations and new media digital narratology in memory work, writing in the ‘contact zone’ is a space for speculation and exploration, where critical and creative processes converge, and individual and collective memories interact. Drawing my inspiration from four literary memoirs written by exiled Jews from Egypt, I create a polyphonic interactive digital memoir that juxtaposes personal histories, material culture and historical narratives of 20th century modern Egypt through interactive audio-visual media. What do these stories tell us that historical narratives haven’t? Writing in the ‘contact zone’ explores these questions and more.