Why We Listen Before We Write
On storytelling as research and the perils of speaking too quickly.
Today’s media is fast: from the turnaround to the pressure to immediately interpret and form opinions and verdicts with a constant influx of conflicting information. This makes for a gross oversimplification of complex cultural movements and a growing presence of neutrality in moments where it’s the least beneficial thing possible.
Meanwhile, research is generally equated to hours spent pouring over articles online or digging through books until the information found begins to create a story. It is often forgotten that conversations are a primary source, and that lived experience is knowledge — one you can’t cite a page number for.
Truly listening can provide context that can be understood before conclusions are drawn. It provides insight that exists beyond surface-level research. The story we tell in the end becomes an amalgamation of process, motivation, contradiction and history.
Qissah aims to understand beyond simple observation. Through combining capturing visuals, reporting, and analysing trends, we want to understand why aspects of culture exist, what shapes them and where they’ll guide the culture as time passes.
An archive goes beyond a simple collection of the past — it creates a selection of history that will one day influence how future generations understand and perceive the present. The creative movements emerging right now deserve to be documented while they are still in the making. The archive should begin before they become history.
It begins with listening with genuine curiosity and working to truly understand people, places and traditions through meaningful conversations. This then flows into contextual research — connecting the stories we’ve been told to wider cultural and historical contexts through traditional, academic research. As the final step, we document — we create the films, the essays, the visual records, that will ultimately go into the core of it all: the Archive. A living, breathing archive of the now before it becomes back then.
As the Gulf and SWANA region continues to undergo a rapid cultural transformation in every aspect, a facet of this shift that often remains buried beneath news on economic and technological shifts is the emergence of new creative ecosystems. The young creatives of today are shaping an identity that will persevere for decades to come — one that merges the traditional with the contemporary in a way there was no space for previously.
Across the region, creative movements are developing at a remarkable pace, in fields ranging from film to architecture. These stories deserve to be documented with depth and care, as they are happening, instead of solely in retrospect. They deserve the act of attentive respect that truly listening offers.
Before every story comes a conversation. Before every archive comes curiosity. Before we ever write, we listen.
