Wasl وَصل; exploring how connection emerges & is experienced

Wasl وَصل; exploring how connection emerges & is experiencedWasl وَصل: Exploring How Connection Emerges and Is Experienced

By Dr Dima Mekdad

Saturday, 14 November 2026 | 5:00–7:15 PM

قَومٌ إِذا هُجِروا مِن بَعدِ ما وُصِلوا

ماتوا وَإِن عادَ وَصلٌ بَعدَهُ بُعِثوا

“A people who, forsaken after being connected in union (wousilou),

die, and if union returns, are raised to life.”

— Al-Hallaj (858–922)

In Arabic, the word wasl holds several meanings at once: connecting, linking, uniting, gathering, arriving, and joining. This workshop takes the word as its starting point, asking how connection takes shape within the body, with one another, with the land, and with the more-than-human world.

For many years, Dr Dima Mekdad’s practice has been informed by her lived experience of migration, community building, and research, as well as her work alongside artists and communities navigating change, rupture, and renewal. Her work centres the body as a site of knowledge, relation, and transformation, attending to how personal experience is shaped through connection with others and the conditions in which we live.

In this workshop, we will practise embodied meditation, simple movement, storytelling, and story-receiving. We will begin with individual embodied meditation before moving into pairs and small groups. Through these collective practices of embodied attention and storytelling, participants are invited to explore, with curiosity, how connection emerges for them.

All practices are invitational and grounded in participants’ consent.

Biography

Dr Dima Mekdad is a multidisciplinary cultural worker and Shubbak’s Executive Director.

She is a researcher, scientist, and politicised somatics practitioner whose work is deeply rooted in justice and collective care. She is Executive Director of Shubbak, Co-Chair of Refugee Week, and a core practitioner with Healing Justice London.