All images by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, The Incidental Insurgents, 2012-2013.

Courtesy of the artists.

 

Courtesy of the artists.

All images by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, The Incidental Insurgents, 2012-2013 Courtesy of the artists.

The Incidental Insurgents: The Part about The Bandits is a search that begins with three seemingly disparate coordinates: the early anarchist life of Victor Serge and his contemporary bandits in Paris in the 1910s; Abu Jilda and Armeet's gang of bandits involved in a rebellion against the British in 1930s Palestine, and the artist as the quintessential bandit in Roberto Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives, set in 1970s Mexico. The first part of the story looks at the resonances between the inspiring, bizarre and sometimes tragic stories of these diverse bandits, outsider rebels par excellence. Intended as an investigation into the possibilities for the future rather than the past, and using literary and factual texts as starting points, a convoluted detective story situated in multiple times starts to emerge. Initiating a journey where the artists try to figure out how we, like the bandits before us, find ourselves inhabiting a moment full of radical potential and disillusionment, in a continual search for a language of the moment.

The project was first shown as an installation and video at the 6th Jerusalem Show on the 1st of November, 2012, in Jerusalem. The installation and video are co-produced by the Young Arab Theatre Fund and Al-Ma'mal Foundation.

This is the second part of the online presentation produced by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme especially for Ibraaz. Part one of this project, The Incidental Insurgents: The Part about the Bandits appears on Ibraaz Platform 004. Here, the artists present an online pamphlet/publication, reflecting on a more obsessive component to the artists' research around the project in the same month the work goes on view at Points of Departure, curated by Rebecca Heald with the support of Mirna Bamieh, an exhibition that culminates a year of collaboration between the Delfina Foundation, ICA, ArtSchool Palestine and the British Council and a residency program between London and Ramallah. The exhibition is on show at the Institute for Contemporary Arts in London (ICA) from 26th June to 21st July.

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, The Incidental Insurgents,  2012, Courtesy of the artists.