Ibraaz would like to announce its upcoming Platform 003 Question:

Can artistic practices offer insights into and simultaneously negotiate the demands of cultural institutions, the politics of public space, and the ideal of civil society in the MENA region?

For the first time, Ibraaz is opening its platform question up to the public and would like to invite considered responses. Contributions can be submitted via text, image, video or sound. In addressing this question, Ibraaz is hoping to elicit responses that engage with a number of interrelated issues:

• What is the basis of the relationship between current art practices and cultural institutions in the MENA region?
• Do cultural institutions in the MENA region encourage, support and disseminate visual culture or just circulate and display it and, in doing so, provide yet another juncture in the commercialisation of culture?
• Has the relationship between cultural institutions and their potential audiences/public changed in the last decade?
• Do cultural institutions contribute to urban development or are they a product of private development ambitions and the privatisation of space?
• What role, if any, do cultural institutions play in developing civil society and public space in the MENA region?
• In the context of current debates about public space in the MENA region, can art as a practice offer ways to rethink how cultural institutions, communities, and civil society interact and relate to one another?
• And finally, is there a “common ground” to be had when we consider the relationship of art practices to urban environments, public space and the development of civil society in the MENA region?

Further information and submission process is available here.