MIMI is an artist-led residency that invites Arab and Jewish artists to come together for creative exchange, inquiry, and collaboration. Founded on friendship and a shared lineage of art practice and critical engagement, MIMI seeks to offer artists a space for facing our moment, asking difficult questions, and imagining new possibilities.

MIMI acknowledges histories and ongoing realities of displacement, conflict, and genocide, and explores what collaborative art-making might do in a world of interconnected suffering. This collaboration recognizes the historical significance of allyship in movements that resist systemic injustice and institutionalized oppression. In the Arab and Jewish context that is most pressingly an occupation that has grave consequences for both peoples.

The residency is committed to fostering an environment where collaboration is an active practice of co-creation, mutual listening, and experimentation. At the heart of MIMI is the belief that art has the capacity to bridge disparate lived experiences and to generate hope. MIMI provides artists with the time, place, and collective container in which to think, create, and dream.

Structured into the residency are prompts to spark collaborative practice, invitational readings, shared meals, and time for participants to discuss their work and experiences with each other. Co-founders Reem Rahim and Maya Pindyck will be on site to facilitate the residency.

The residency is named MIMI after the nickname of a blanket that Maya gifted Reem’s son Ziad when he was a baby, and which became his security blanket. Ziad grew to refer to all soft things as MIMI. 

MIMI is also an extension of the name Miriam, suggesting “bitterness” and “living waters”; sister to the Latin name Mira, meaning “wonderful”; an Italian pet form of Maria, which may have roots in Ancient Egyptian, evoking “love” or “beloved.” 

Finally, MIMI holds a quiet echo of “me me” to which we wonder, like owls, “who who?”

Note: The residency was initially scheduled for June 2026 in Morocco and had to be postponed due to security concerns. For more information, contact mimiartistresidency@gmail.com