Shunyu Huang and The Memory Quilt Project:
Thursday, July 13 | Scent & Taste
Thursday, July 20 | Sound
Thursday, July 27 | Sight & Touch
Join Story Parlor for the second iteration of its summer Story/Arts Residency, welcoming local artist Shunyu Huang for a month-long celebration of sense memory.
For this second event, we’ll bear witness to locals in the community as they share memories inspired by sight and touch through the transformative power of art and stories. Featured artists include JoeRob, Becca Nestler, and Shokhrukh Qaroboshev, alongside Shunyu Huang.
Then, Shunyu will lead the audience in a community circle where guests are encouraged to contribute their own stories, memories, and sensory items to further enrich the fabric of this community quilt-making project.
Along with your stories, please consider bringing photos, short videos, and other sensory items related to this week’s memory theme!
As different people, we sometimes forget how much more common we have than we are different. The Chinese Proverb 求同存異 (Qiu Tong Cun Yi) sums it up: "Seek similarities while preserving differences". This Story/Arts residency presents the inspired vision of Shunyu Huang in an effort to bring the community together through the connective tissue that exists between storytelling and memory.
Quilt-making, to Shunyu, is a fascinating Appalachian tradition that serves as a powerful storytelling art form, weaving together narratives, memories, and cultural heritage through intricate patterns and carefully chosen fabrics, preserving history and fostering intergenerational connections. Each stitch carries the essence of the maker, telling stories that transcend time and inspiring a deeper understanding of our shared human experiences.
What if we come together and share these memories that affect us deeply and shape us into who we are?
What if we pull out those old photos, tapes; that song that your grandma hummed in the kitchen; that smell from your neighbor's favorite tea; and talk about why, somehow, that lives in you?
“Let’s make this Memory-Quilt together. One memory and stitch at a time.”
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Shunyu Huang was born in 1989 in a Southern China city Zhuhai in Guangdong Province.
Before getting her Bachelor’s degree in Ecology, She travelled to Tibet, southwest China and southeast Asia with her film cameras in search of a connection of different peoples and their homeland.
She had found that, as different peoples, we sometimes forget how much more common we have than we are different. The Chinese Proverb 求同存異 (Qiu Tong Cun Yi) sums it up: Seek Common, Exist Difference; While she mingles in the local communities in Asheville, she finds herself marveled by how close our hearts can get by sharing our memories.
It could be playing in the creek with childhood best friends and forgetting to go home;
It could be sitting by the kitchen table listen to mom’s mumbling about a rough day;
It could be watching an unforgetable sunset with a lover on a strange city;
In this community that we long for and are building together, Shunyu desires to use storytelling, here as memory-sharing to unify us.
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JoeRob
JoeRob, creator of the Restored Dreams Project, believes creative endeavors have the potential to unite.
“Art brings people together in a diverse community,” he says. “If you can get people together, then they’ll find out they have a lot more likeness than they have differences.”
In the broken and twisted patterns of nature, JoeRob sees beauty where others might see neglect. “I love trying to tell a story in my art,” he says. “I’m also in love with trees. To me, the tree is the most beautiful plant, the most beautiful creation of God.”
“I feel like if I didn’t go out in the woods and find those pieces, then they would just rot, and no one would ever remember anything about it. But if I take it and I make it into a piece of art, then it gives it a whole other life.”
“Art gave me my voice.”
JoeRob will be sharing his intimate relationship with trees and how he uses wood pieces to tell stories.
The Restored Dream Project: https://www.counterflowasheville.com/restored-dreams-project
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Becca Nestler
Becca Nestler was born and raised in these deep Appalachian Mountains. She loves swimming in nearby rivers and lakes, walking along forest floors, listening for the secret, searching for the sound.
Becca will be sharing images and memories from both her life growing up in the Appalachian mountains as well as her second home in rural India.
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Шохрух Карабашев
Shokhrukh Qaroboshev
Shokhrukh (or Shoha) was born in Tajikistan. He moved to Moscow, Russia with his parents when he was 16. Interested in learning Chinese and pursuing higher education in China, he decided to move to China at the age of 21. His favorite food is Rice Pilaf.
Shoha will be sharing a story of life and childhood in Tajikstan.
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Story Parlor’s residencies exist to champion the creative work of locally-based artists and art groups hailing from BIPOC, LGTBQIA+, and other historically marginalized communities in the quest to amplify and bridge together the diverse fabric of voices in Asheville.
Specifically, the Story/Arts residency aims to provide a platform that showcases the transformative and healing powers of storytelling through all art mediums, while tending to the core values of Story Parlor’s mission, which include:
• Connecting audiences and artists from varying creative backgrounds and interests
• Informing, inspiring, and invigorating through the arts
• Promoting and fostering self-inquiry and mindfulness
• Cultivating creative exchange and cultural insight
• Fostering authenticity and inclusiveness
In addition to public performances and/or workshops, artists-in-residence receive dedicated rehearsal time in the space; an artist stipend; creativity coaching sessions; marketing and promotion; and more.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, with preference given to applicants who cross disciplines, embrace collaboration, and present a residency proposal that embodies the core elements of storytelling through all art forms. More info can be found here.
Story Parlor would like to thank ArtsAVL and Buncombe County for providing funding support for the Story/Arts Residency program.