Exchange Talk: Art and Health - Mariem Omari

Exchange Talks: Art and Health

Mariem Omari – Writing the Personal: Crafting stories for the stage and screen with care and intention

Writing from personal experience can create profound, moving work, and has the potential to bring about unexpected healing for the writer and their audience. But how can we bring greater awareness to this process? And what does it mean to apply ‘considered intention’ to creating work for the stage and screen? In this session, Mariem will interrogate the plays and films she has created and the impact they have had. She will invite us to examine our personal experiences, the values that guide us in our creative choices, and how this can have a lasting effect on others.

Bio:

Mariem (Mim) is a playwright, screenwriter, and Artistic Director/Co-Founder of Bijli Productions. Her productions are described as “political, sensitive, and compelling,” often confronting societal taboos. Mariem left Australia for her father’s homeland in the Middle East to work as a humanitarian. This inspired her commitment to promoting stories that strengthen the voice for equality. Her next move was to her mother’s homeland, Scotland, where she has been working closely with ethnically diverse communities. She was one of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Starter for 10, selected to develop her play, One Mississippi, which showcased at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 2017, and toured nationally in 2022. She had three plays commissioned in 2019 – The Trojans, performed by Syrian Refugees; Paper Memories, 2019 National Puppetry and Animation Festival; and Walkin’ the Line, part of SMHAF 2019. In 2021 she was commissioned by BBC Scotland to create Breaking Point – a series of five short monologues for radio/digital platforms. She is currently developing her first feature for BBC FILM.

image credit: Mihaela Bodlovik