A Participatory Film Event:
This Saturday at One Eyed Studios
In Search of Bluer Tongues: Participatory Community Film Scene
Saturday, April 11, 2026
In Search of Bluer Tongues: A Participatory Film Event at One Eyed Studios
2–5 PM
Rockella Space – One Eyed Studios
Studio 180 (Entrance via Weirfield St)
1642 Weirfield St, Brooklyn
Drop in for 15 minutes or stay longer—participants are invited to take part at any time throughout the afternoon.
A Small Gesture, A Shared Language
This Saturday, Rockella Space opens the doors of One Eyed Studios for a one-day pop-up that invites the public into an intimate act of collective image-making.
Tempest Gallery presents this participatory film event, supported by RRASP through free studio space and hosted at Rockella Space.
Taking place in Studio 180 (entrance via Weirfield St), In Search of Bluer Tongues: Participatory Community Film Scene is led by artist Zelikha Zohra Shoja and centers on a simple yet resonant gesture: participants are invited to stick out their tongues, stained blue with candy, as part of an ongoing film project.
Activating the Studio
Set against fabric backdrops and a minimal stage, the project unfolds through a series of short screen tests. Visitors are encouraged to drop in, take part, and contribute to the work—no prior experience or preparation needed.
The gesture itself is playful, even childlike, but carries a deeper emotional register. In Shoja’s work, this act becomes a way to explore memory, nostalgia, and the rituals that shape how we relate to one another across time and place.
The project is especially attuned to experiences of migration and diaspora, extending an open invitation to families, elders, children, and anyone who feels connected to these narratives.
A Collective Invitation
At Rockella Space, studios are not only places of production—they are sites of possibility. Hosting In Search of Bluer Tongues reflects an ongoing commitment to activating these spaces in ways that foster connection, experimentation, and public engagement.
This event offers a different kind of studio encounter: one where the boundary between artist and audience softens, and participation becomes the work itself.
About the Artist
This is an open call to participate in a shared, fleeting moment—one that embraces play, vulnerability, and connection.
Join us this Saturday and become part of the work.
About Tempest
Zelikha Zohra Shoja is a U.S.-based Afghan artist, researcher, and غمخوار / gham-khoor (“grief eater”), living and working on unceded Onondaga land (Syracuse, New York).
Working across film, photography, writing, and performance, her practice engages with ecologies of interdependence, collective myth-making, and the transmission of memory. Drawing from her academic background in migration and diaspora, Shoja creates work that considers how shared experiences are transferred, mirrored, and felt across bodies and time.
Her work has been presented internationally at institutions including Friche la Belle de Mai (Marseille), Goethe-Institut (Almaty & Tashkent), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), Millennium Film Workshop (New York), and more.
She is a recipient of the 2026 Light Work Urban Video Project Regional Experimental Media Commission and a 2024–25 Fulbright U.S. Student Award, supporting her ongoing creative research.
At Tempest Gallery, we want to talk about art in a maelstrom. We invite artists to be unafraid to broach difficult conversations and address colonial structures of violence through their practice in textiles, sculpture, and installation. Our main desire is that each monthly show present layered themes where multiple cultural references intersect and tussle.
Launched in 2024, Tempest Gallery is located at Rockella Space’s One Eyed Studios in Ridgewood, Queens. Through our programming and events, we aim to create community and a space for gathering, presenting work and building relationships.
Please visit us at 1642 Weirfield Street, Ridgewood Queens, NY, during our regular gallery hours Wednesday-Saturday, 1-6pm.
We are open to scheduled visits outside of regular hours, please direct message us on instagram