We are bound together by stories, our own personal story we tell ourselves and our stories of the world we live in, that we share with others".
Myrna Shoa mixed media artist filmmaker storyteller
"I am more than ever in a story gathering time," Myrna Shoa
Can we ever convey a time that is other than the one we live in? We barely register the changes from year to year, as like a wave rippling on to a shore the currents change imperceptibly. Our yardstick of what we think of as good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable change. Trying to express it, however, allows us to see where we are today and where we have come from, without judgment but simply to pay attention to how our thinking and worldview has changed without us noticing it. As a mixed media artist, I find whatever I need, pastels, pencils, paint, film to bring a story alive.
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The power of images and stories places us in a historical context and helps us make sense of the world, in finding out who we are, what has shaped us, and who we can become. With all my creative projects I am interested in the stories we tell ourselves and how sharing stories with others can bring fresh insights. As an historical records of a time I created.
World Turned Upside Down is an animation I made in January 2018. |
"I am still adding to the other websites I developed, The Fool 1973 as well as A Childhood Remembered. I am now creating and developing a Patchwork of Stories, films that capture powerful untold stories from so called ordinary people. They convey a time and mindset of another era that can help us all take a fresh perspective on our world today", Myrna Shoa
All my energy now is in telling stories through film, photos, words and artwork.
Yvonne Reed, Donald. Dede, Caroline Poole
In 2024 The Suitcase was shortlisted for a prize at The Portobello Film Festival. In 2025 my film Donald Dede - My Biafra War was shortlisted. The Suitcase was shown again at a special screening in November 2025.
Watch my films on my westlondonfilms YouTube channel
See Hazel Riley's Gift. Two days before my friend and colleague Hazel passed she gave me a gift. This is a gift for all of us. Find out more.
Gilgamesh, Enkidu, Ishtar, Siduri. Myrna Shoa’s recent artwork.
“This 4000 year old story predates the bible spoke to me, echoed experiences of the world today as well as yesterday..The goddess Ishtar wanted Gilgamesh as a husband. He refused her offer proceeding to mock and insult her. Thus followed a tale of life, death and transformation. Using the imagery from this ancient 'Odysse'y enabled me to have a vehicle to tell a contemporary story about our world and time.The print of Ishtar glows as the colours sing”. Myrna Shoa.
Ishtar, Gilgamesh Enkidu, Myrna Shoa (C)
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Gilgamesh, I'm Mortal Myrna Shoa
Gilganesh I'm Mortal Myrna Shoa
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Through the imagery and story from an epic such as Gilgamesh, I am experimenting with telling a story that is appropriate for today or any time. You can buy an A4 print size mounted on 30x40 cm card for £40. Buy the 3 images in the series for £100.
Available as stunning prints. Enjoy the art and learn from the stories what, or what not to do.
A World In A Suitcase
A World in a Suitcase is an innovative mixed media visual storytelling project, conceived and developed by Myrna Shoa and Timuchin Dindjer that inspires people from diverse communities to take a fresh look at their 'Worlds' through sharing stories, art, photography, paper collage & film.A World in a Suitcase project is a resource for people to take a look at their lives, share their stories with others. Fo now the Suitcase is closed. The project as it was has come to an organic end, yet the material -knowledge gained can be used and adapted for future activities.
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A World in a Suitcase worked with a diverse range of Grassroots community groups ensuring that there is a tangible, meaningful outcome, that the participants can feel ownership and part of.
The aim of the project: To foster closer relations, understanding, empathy and tolerance between communities. |
A Childhood Remembered - Stories that may resonate with yours
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In the last year of my sister Sandra's life we passionately gathered together our stories from our childhood for this website - Sandra and Myrna
We disagreed sometimes about what happened realising that we saw the world through our own eyes. This enlivened the recollections, made them richer. Without this wonderful story gathering I would not have been able to write, illustrate and have published Strange Ways stories about our shared upbringing.These stories are mainly for our families to read, to answer questions about their backgrounds, history and connection to the other cultures they have come from. |
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Out of the blue, at the end of 2021 I had 2 emails from people from my past that had 'found' me after approximately 65 years, a relative and a school mate of Sandra and me, "The Past, Present and Future are entwined in these bizarre events. People who have known me when a child at primary school have in 2021 found me, through my website, got in contact with me and filled in gaps in my stories, and memories," Myrna Shoa
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PAST PRESENT & FUTURE - Through these new encounters I am able to reach back onto the past and add information, my truths to those times which in turn will affect the future for all of us who knew those stories from so long ago.
History is fluid, the way we look at events is dependent on what information is gathered from different points of view, the context of the times. Memories of past events and stories will inevitably become fixed if no new input has been added to those recollections. |
"With Sandra's passing I am the last of the Horowitchs. No one else is alive. As children the only relatives we had were our parents, Uncle Morris and Aunty Rosie. The relatives on our mother Ina's side, the Hendrys we thought were all dead as there had been no contact with them since we were children, until 2021. Sandra and I met Aunty Betty in London our mother's sister several times in London and Uncle James our mother's brother and family in the 1950s, in Scotland.
Sandra lives on in these stories, These stories may resonate with yours," Myrna Shoa 2020
Sandra lives on in these stories, These stories may resonate with yours," Myrna Shoa 2020
"Since Sandra's death I have been trying to find out any more information about our backgrounds. In May 2021, I discovered the actual newspaper articles about our grandfather Myer, Rosie and Morris, recently digitised, uploaded and available free from the British Newspaper Archive. Sandra would have been amazed and delighted to see all this. I hope she is looking down and smiling. SEE STRANGE WAYS STORIES our version of these stories told to us over our upbringing."
The Fool 1973
Myrna Shoa created The Fool website as a historical record of a time and resource showing how she, Ruti and other creative women gave birth to a successful enterprise. The Fool a designer women’s hippie fashion company started in 1973 with a little bit of magic. The Fool caught the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time.
Myrna Shoa and Ruti -Then & Now
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Myrna, Aury, Ruti, Laila
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The Fool designed manufactured and sold colourful, flowing, lacy hippie style women’s clothes around The Portobello Road area at a time of great change. From Aden, Manchester, Eritrea, Cheetham Hill, Scotland, Clydebank, Dvinsk, Russia, Ruti, Myrna and Aury set up The Fool.
This hotchpotch combination made the magic happen brought the spark alive and created a successful entrepreneurial business.
Storytelling connects us to the world
Strange Ways Stories tales that are true yet unbelievable.
I have written and illustrated true family stories, Strange Ways Stories published by Gatehouse Books.
The Sofa, The Marriage, The Box of Chocolates and Rosie & the Iron Bar. I co - wrote with author Hazel Riley and also illustrated the beginner readers 'From The Heart' series, retelling the Greek myths in a modern urban setting.
The Sofa, The Marriage, The Box of Chocolates and Rosie & the Iron Bar. I co - wrote with author Hazel Riley and also illustrated the beginner readers 'From The Heart' series, retelling the Greek myths in a modern urban setting.
Creativity can rise from the ashes of difficult, chaotic times
Innovation comes about through necessity
https://thesuitcaseproject.weebly.com/ A new website in collaboration with artist Caroline Poole
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