Ayat Hasan
The act of creation and storytelling is ingrained in human nature. It feels natural to allow our curiosity to roam in the act of play. To tell a story is to create, and to create is to exist.
Ayat Hasan
Bio
Your Local Tampa Community Member
Artist
My art validated my existence when I lacked representation.
This leads to a critical question:
How essential is visibility?
Many Palestinians face the same struggle—they cannot express themselves openly without the risk of being ostracized or having to face violence. For me, animation resolves this dilemma. Through animated scenes, stylized visuals, and symbolic narratives, it became a vital tool to negotiate, explore, and affirm my identity.
Through animation, I would find ways to weave in details of history with the worldbuilding, Traditions into character design, and highlight the depth of culture ingrained in the plot.
I connected with animation because it is a medium that heavily relies on intentional movement and production.
A reason to why each frame matters.
Organizer
Ayoon Art House is an up-and-coming creative space that organizes art galleries, craft clubs, and events like today’s Open Mic.
A creative space focusing on art as a form of cultural preservation.
Creative freedom and storytelling are birthrights.
Ayoon Art House originates from a truth deeply rooted in human history, a witness to creation leading to creation as documentation. Storytelling is a natural way to document the existence of communities, cultures, and traditions.
Inspired by our ancestors who resisted imperialism through their acts of creation, together we will continue their legacy by offering a space where our creations (and those after us) can flourish freely.
Ayoon Art House is a space where art validates presence and resists erasure. Here, your creativity can be a hobby, but it's also a form of survival, resistance, and hope.
Teacher
Teaching Animation is a unique experience that I'm so grateful to participate in. I was teaching Animation for the first time to students who were learning visual storytelling through a new medium. To introduce a new medium that opens students' perspective of what's possible and shows them they are capable of more than they believe.
They probably had experience drawing comics or writing booklets of their own, but creating their own animation was new territory.
so the art classroom grew into a place where it felt natural to allow their curiosity to roam in the act of play. To tell a story is to create, and to create is to exist.