Free Saturday Workshop #1 – Personal Story Archive

Free Saturday Workshops at Kunstinstituut Melly

Education & Participation Space

Since the opening of our Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly has become a vibrant place for workshops, lectures, and collective learning experiences. Every Saturday, we organize free workshops open to everyone, where creativity, connection, and personal expression are at the heart of the experience.

Our Saturday workshops offer space for experimentation and connection. Participants explore storytelling, visual arts, color, drawing, writing, and movement, contributing to a collective story archive—a living artwork preserving each person’s presence and voice. Each session is also an opportunity to make a small personal keepsake: a symbolic “key” inviting reflection on your own experiences.

The Education & Participation Space serves as a hub for learning, exchange, and collective imagination, where participants meet, share ideas, and explore new forms of creation together.

Workshop Series — Nurdan Ariöz

In January 2026, the Saturday program features a special series led by Nurdan Ariöz. This workshop series builds on her project Key Stories, exploring the “in-between space” where meaning emerges in encounters.

Participants bring personal memories, a sound, a smell, a conversation, or a fleeting moment, which are expressed through collage, drawing, color, writing, and intuitive movement, and compiled in a collective story archive. The result is a growing artwork where individual voices come together into a living whole.

In addition to contributing to the collective archive, participants create a small personal object to take home—a tangible reminder of what has been shared and created.

The workshops are accessible to all ages (children 4–8 years welcome) and participants with limited language skills. Facilitators provide oral support, visual translation, and adapted prompts to ensure everyone can participate fully.

Workshop #1 — Personal Story Archive

In this first workshop, you will lay the foundation for your personal story archive. Collect small memories, thoughts, and experiences that have stayed with you, and give them shape through drawing, writing, and collage.

Your contribution becomes part of the shared archive in the space, while you also make a small keepsake to take home—a first key within the series.

Next workshops in this series

Workshop #2 — Key to a Memory
Capture a memory in one sentence and a small visual.

Workshop #3 — The Colors of Silence
Express a feeling without words through color and movement.

Workshop #4 — A New Key Story
Combine stories from the archive to create a new narrative.

Workshop #5 — Letter to Yourself
Reflect and conclude the series with a personal card to yourself.