Mixed Media Video, Artwork, Stories, A World in a Suitcase
“I am an artist, illustrator, storyteller and published writer as well as one of the founders and Creative Director of A World in a Suitcase.
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 historical records of a time I created The Fool website as well as A Childhood Remembered,
In 2023 I started another project, Stories about Women," Myrna Shoa
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 historical records of a time I created The Fool website as well as A Childhood Remembered,
In 2023 I started another project, Stories about Women," Myrna Shoa
We are bound together by stories, our own personal story we tell ourselves as well as our national stories
of the larger world we live in, that we share with others".
of the larger world we live in, that we share with others".
World Turned Upside Down is an animation I made in January 2018. The World did turn upside down in 2020 with the global pandemic.
Creativity can rise from the ashes of difficult, chaotic times
"The Covid Pandemic impacted on people all over the world. Now it seems but a distant memory yet it was only a few years ago. Over Covid Lockdown 2020- 2021 I conceived and created 2 video animations. The Man in The Red Suit and You Can't Come In. I also made Our World in Lockdown with Timuchin Dindjer. I recorded Inma Meruelo reading her delightful book she wrote and illustrated for children, Once Upon a Time in Covid -19 Time". Myrna Shoa
Innovation comes about through necessity
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9 people from diverse communities share their responses to lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic 2020.. Produced and directed by: Timuchin Dindjer and Myrna Shoa (C)
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"The Man in The Red Suit - Life is like a jigsaw puzzle is an experimental video animation created during Lockdown, 2020 (C)
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"You Can't Come In is a video animation."You need a password to enter". is an experimental video animation created during Lockdown, 2021 (C)
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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.
Now the Suitcase is closed.
We are no losing running workshops. The project has come to an organic end, yet the material, knowledge gained can be used
and adapted for future activities.
Now the Suitcase is closed.
We are no losing running workshops. The project 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 has 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. |
"I am more than ever in a story gathering time," Myrna Shoa
A Childhood Remembered
"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. 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
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. 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
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.
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.
Sandra and Myrna
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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 a few times, in Scotland.
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."
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Stories About Women
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A record of stories from older women, their perspectives on Marriage, Mothers, Men, Sex, Women's Rights, Expectations, Dreams, Older Women, gained from a lifetime's experiences. We need these stories to see where we have come from and find out whether there has been any real change in a woman's life.
Attitudes towards women have changed over the decades, centuries formed by the context of the societies at a given time about how women are seen. It would be a male focused viewpoint as it was and is a mans world in most parts of the world. |
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.
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Stories about women storiesaboutwomen.wixsite.com/stories-
about-women- Marriage is a short documentary that gives a voice to women who have not been heard before. Four older women from diverse backgrounds in conversation with Myrna Shoa about Marriage, Expectations, Women's Rights, Race, Religion, Men, Contraception and Love. |
Stories about women - Older Women, Myrna Shoa and Yvonne Reed creative entrepreneurial friends share stories from their lifetime experiences about Older Women. and Marriage. These films are part on an ongoing series giving a voice to untold stories.
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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.
The Fool 1973
The Fool women's fashion 1973
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Myrna Shoa created The Fool website as an historical record 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.
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Myrna Shoa and Ruti -Then & Now
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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. |
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