Enjoy art, music, and culture in the Grand Center Arts District on the first Friday of the month. This event celebrates Great Rivers Biennial 2024 artist Saj Issa and traditional Palestinian cultural forms that relate to the artist’s exhibition.

Schedule

• 5:00 pm Drinks and specialty cocktails available for purchase from AO&Co
• 6:00–7:30pm Hands-on art making exploring tatreez, a form of traditional Palestinian embroidery, led by Saj Issa
• 7:30 pm Oud performance by Ronnie Malley

About the artists

Saj Issa (she/her) received a BFA from Webster University, St. Louis, and a MFA at the University of California, Los Angeles. Growing up between St. Louis and Ramallah, Palestine, her practice is an exploration of displacement, identity, social issues, and consumerism. Issa provokes, informs, and entertains viewers with her work, which has been exhibited at Felix Art Fair in Los Angeles, Materials Fair in Mexico City, the exhibition Many at the Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles, and most recently, Your Refuge installed on the exterior of The Luminary as a part of psa-stl. Issa is a recipient of the 2022 NCECA Graduate Student Fellowship, and has been selected to appear in New American Paintings, No. 159 & 165 MFA Annual Issue. She has been an artist-in-residence at Craft Alliance Center of Art and Design, St. Louis, and Belger Crane Yard Studio, Kansas City.

Ronnie Malley (he/him) is a multi-instrumentalist musician on oud, guitar, keyboards, and percussion, a theatrical performer, producer, and educator. He has collaborated with international artists, composed and consulted for many cultural music projects in film and theater, appeared as a guest artist on several works, and is executive director of Intercultural Music Production in Chicago.