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THE CEDAR TREE PROJECT
​
The Cedar Tree Project is a creative platform 
that supports and amplifies​ Arab/SWANA ​contemporary art and artists,
inviting deeper understanding, empathy ​and engagement through creative exchange.
Facilitated by Sharon Mansur
 Lebanese American artist/curator 
Mni Sota Makoce/MN, Dakota land

​SWANA: Southwest Asian and North African
​Some thoughts from a dance perspective, by Nadia Khayrallah:
https://www.dance.nyc/programs/jcomm/blog/2019/02/Middle-Eastern-Arab-Why-That-Matters-and-more/and

Picture

Stay tuned ​for 2026 updates
2024 McKnight International Choreographer Residency
   with  Meryl Zaytoun Murman (Thessaloniki, Greece)
Residency partner: Sharon Mansur/The Cedar Tree Project
​Artists: Gloria Alicia Alatorre, Mary Lee Eischen, Sharon Mansur,
Marcia Ratliff, Zil Ricker
Prairie Island Campground, Winona, MN, Dakota land


​Pictured; Meryl Zaytoun Murman, overhead view of an Arab American woman with brown hair wearing leopard patterned and pink tank tops and shorts sitting on a rock with green vegetation.
​THE CEDAR TREE PROJECT STANDS ​WITH PALESTINE & LEBANON​
 Middle East Children's Alliance  -  www.mecaforpeace.org/
MN Families for Filistin -  https://linktr.ee/mnfams4palestine 
Palestine Children's Relief Fund -  https://www.pcrf.net/
Lebanon  Solidarity Collective - https://chuffed.org/project/lebanonsolidarity
Animals Lebanon -  https://www.animalslebanon.org/
Artists for Palestine -  https://art4palestine.org/
Palestinian Museum Digital Archive -  https://palarchive.org/
Museum of the Palestinian People -  https://mpp-dc.org/
1001 Arab Futures 
“We’re living in a time where there are challenging and complicated questions, misconceptions and sociopolitical concerns regarding the SWANA region and people.  As an artist/curator I am thrilled to have the opportunity to welcome artists from the richly diverse SWANA diaspora to our rural community in Minnesota, 
and offer a range of perspectives, questions, narratives and invitations. “
~ Sharon Mansur

"...while Sharon has lived in Washington DC in the aftermath of 9/11, and created work that meditates on the erasures, violence, and misunderstandings directed toward Arab individuals, her recent work has brought those opportunities for experience and exchange to the rural upper Midwest – and has opened up a space for folks beyond the city
​to sit more deeply, more intimately, with racial and cultural difference."
~Matthew Fluharty, Art of the Rural
​
Cedars of Lebanon photo by Sharon Mansur (2018)
THE CEDAR TREE PROJECT
Featured artists and events
ARTIST/FACILITATOR/CURATOR
​Sharon Mansur
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Community meals, workshops, artist residencies, discussions and more....