Tale of Place —
Roccella Jonica
Dear friends,
We invite you to take part in a new Sonic Jeel project.
Tale of Place is a newly initiated series of projects rooted in fieldwork, research, and creative translation. Through visuals, sound and various forms of making, we aim to explore personal geographies that connect our lives in Qatar to locations of significance.
We start this series with Roccella Jonica, a small town on the Ionian coast of Calabria in southern Italy, where Simone’s mother was born. It is a place of beautiful light, stunning coastline, and deep rooted olive tree culture. Our intention is to build geographic, cultural, and artistic connections that intertwine Roccella, the Mediterranean, and our Doha based community.
Over the years, we have been documenting Roccella’s people, places, rituals, and everyday moments. During our most recent visit, we focused on the olive harvest season and the cold-press olive oil process. These images have been organized into several categories and are now available for you to explore on this page.
We hope you will react to, reimagine, or reinterpret this documentation, according to your skills, interests, and creative process. The idea is to create a narration of a place shaped by distance, curiosity, and shared cultural threads.
Invitation to Artists
We are inviting a small group of artists, designers, and makers we appreciate and respect to join this exploration. Browse the archive and respond in any medium that resonates with your practice. Pick an image, or several, and let them inform your translation. A drawing, illustration, photography, painting, collage, small object, garment, poem, or any other response that you feel you want to make, either physical or digital.
The final outcome you create will appear in a printed publication. The publication will be an exploratory platform for collecting, organizing and displaying varied interpretations of place. Please note that submitted work may be adapted for layout and production purposes, including resizing, cropping, or color adjustments, to support the cohesion of the final printed format. The publication will also serve as a catalyst for two exhibitions, one in Roccella and one in Doha, to showcase the work created.
The first exhibition is planned in Roccella around the end of June 2026. To allow time for design, printing, and production, we ask you to submit your final work by January 18, 2026 (submission details will follow).
If your piece is physical, dimensional, or time-based, you will be asked to submit a high-quality image that communicates it clearly.
We hope to hear from you soon.
Eman, Michael, Stella, and Simone x Sonic Jeel
We invite you to take part in a new Sonic Jeel project.
Tale of Place is a newly initiated series of projects rooted in fieldwork, research, and creative translation. Through visuals, sound and various forms of making, we aim to explore personal geographies that connect our lives in Qatar to locations of significance.
We start this series with Roccella Jonica, a small town on the Ionian coast of Calabria in southern Italy, where Simone’s mother was born. It is a place of beautiful light, stunning coastline, and deep rooted olive tree culture. Our intention is to build geographic, cultural, and artistic connections that intertwine Roccella, the Mediterranean, and our Doha based community.
Over the years, we have been documenting Roccella’s people, places, rituals, and everyday moments. During our most recent visit, we focused on the olive harvest season and the cold-press olive oil process. These images have been organized into several categories and are now available for you to explore on this page.
We hope you will react to, reimagine, or reinterpret this documentation, according to your skills, interests, and creative process. The idea is to create a narration of a place shaped by distance, curiosity, and shared cultural threads.
Invitation to Artists
We are inviting a small group of artists, designers, and makers we appreciate and respect to join this exploration. Browse the archive and respond in any medium that resonates with your practice. Pick an image, or several, and let them inform your translation. A drawing, illustration, photography, painting, collage, small object, garment, poem, or any other response that you feel you want to make, either physical or digital.
The final outcome you create will appear in a printed publication. The publication will be an exploratory platform for collecting, organizing and displaying varied interpretations of place. Please note that submitted work may be adapted for layout and production purposes, including resizing, cropping, or color adjustments, to support the cohesion of the final printed format. The publication will also serve as a catalyst for two exhibitions, one in Roccella and one in Doha, to showcase the work created.
The first exhibition is planned in Roccella around the end of June 2026. To allow time for design, printing, and production, we ask you to submit your final work by January 18, 2026 (submission details will follow).
If your piece is physical, dimensional, or time-based, you will be asked to submit a high-quality image that communicates it clearly.
We hope to hear from you soon.
Eman, Michael, Stella, and Simone x Sonic Jeel