'Empty Bowls' workshops in Cork raise funds for Gaza

A LOCAL artist is teaching Cork people to make clay bowls ahead of a fundraising event to help the people of Gaza.

Last weekend, Youghal-born fine art sculptor and ceramicist Martha Cashman led the first of three planned clay bowl workshops at Nano Nagle Place.

The workshops offer the public the opportunity to learn the skill of crafting clay bowls, which will then be used at a ‘Peace Soup’ event to raise funds for Gaza.

“Empty bowls are a symbol of need and hunger, yet are also hopeful and beautiful.

“We are inviting people to come together in Cork to create clay bowls in solidarity with the people of Gaza, who are suffering so terribly at the moment,” Ms Cashman said.

Ms Cashman works mainly with porcelain and hand builds all of her work, using seeds and heirloom textiles to create subtle surface decoration on all of her art pieces.

She says her aim is to create unique, well-conceived individual ceramic objects, and her ideal is to create sculptural works with qualities that will enrich the viewer’s life.

Gaza has been under near constant bombardment from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the five months since, according to Israeli figures, Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted another 250 in a series of terrorist attacks against communities across southern Israel on October 7.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, with about 80% of the territory’s 2.3m people crammed into increasingly small areas in an effort to find safety in the tiny Palestinian enclave.

According to the UN, one quarter of Gaza’s population is currently “one step away from famine”.

Last week, the leading UN expert on the right to food accused Israel of intentionally starving Palestinians. Michael Fakhri, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, told The Guardian Israel should be held responsible for war crimes and genocide.

“Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime.

“Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian,” Mr Fakhri said.

“In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide.”

Child malnutrition is soaring in the besieged territory, with UN officials reporting this week that one in six children under the age of two in the northern half of Gaza are acutely malnourished.

Empty Bowls is a grassroots movement by artists and craftspeople around the world to help feed and support those in need in Gaza, and Ms Cashman is organising the workshops at Nano Nagle Place.

The Cork Empty Bowls project will culminate in what is being billed as a “Peace Soup” event in April, with funds being raised for Médicins Sans Frontières in Gaza.

The first two Nano Nagle Place workshops took place last Sunday, with the remaining two taking place on Sunday, March 10, at 11.30am and 2.30pm.

Workshops will include lessons on glazing and decorating the bowls, which will later be fired at the National Sculpture Factory.

For further information see nanonagleplace.ie.

Booking via Eventbrite is essential, and the workshops welcome donations of €25 or more to register and places are limited, so those interested are advised to book early to avoid disappointment.