Last week, former ICORN Guest Writer Easterine Kire Iralu and photographer Anita Ingebrigtsen visited Stavanger as part of The Shahrazad Neighbourhood Challenge project. For six days, they explored the city and its surroundings looking for people, places and situations to take pictures of and write poems about, with the intent of creating a photo-poem-book about the city.
The Neighbourhood Challenge is a Shahraad activity instigated to support ICORN Guest Writers in creating cultural projects with local artists. Iralu and Ingebrigtsen's book, in which everything from city originals and construction workers to interesting store fronts and dogs with a personality will be portrayed, is a prime example of such a project - creating relationships between the Guest Writer and new colleagues. The Neighbourhood Challenge also sparks new and interesting arenas for the Guest Writers' voices to be heard.
Another Neighbourhood Challenge project that is currently in the making is a documentary film made by Prudence Uriri, Elisabeth O. Sjaastad and Bob Coen. Mansur Rajih and Liv Runesdatter are working on a musical production based partly on Rajih's poetry, and young people in Stavanger are invited to take part in a bilingual creative writing workshop with Rajih and poet Odveig Klyve in April.
