Search results

Gregory Sholette at Home Workspace Program

Edited by Anthony Downey (Sternberg Press, 2016)

Edited by Anthony Downey (Sternberg Press, 2016)

Wided Rihana Khadraoui: Digitalizing Social Change through Cultural Institutions in Saudi Arabia

Monira Al Qadiri: The Saudi New Wave | Digital Landscapes and Future Institutions

Leila Al-Shami: Emerging from ‘The Kingdom of Silence’ | Beyond Institutions in Revolutionary Syria

London book launch

Building Institutions Through Practice

Re-routing Institutional Critique

Art and Culture Beyond Institutions in Amman

News from the Arab World reaches western audiences on a daily basis. The various analogue and online formats of media – TV, radio, newspapers, and blogs – are extensively reporting on the events in this region. In Berlin, and certainly elsewhere in Europe, cultural institutions and festivals reacted very quickly...

Yes, artistic practices can offer insights into those things – but need they? Many artists in the region deftly wield smart institutional critique without breaking a sweat. But why not pass that responsibility to the audiences for their work? I think the best way to develop civil society is not...

One major obstacle for a diverse art scene in a country or region is the lack of artistic infrastructure with institutions that offer support for artistic research and the production of independent, non-market-related work. During the past decade, most countries in the MENA region have seen the establishment of independent,...

As a politically engaged artist, I have to believe that artistic practices do have the potential to offer insights and negotiate anything from the demands of cultural institutions to politics and the ideals of civil society. Without such a belief, the entire foundation of what I do would be rattled....

I am broadly interested in addressing the recontextualisation of cultural heritage in the MENA region by institutions, thus aligning it in the process with current developments in contemporary art at large. Artistic practices are frequently used to measure the economic and cultural growth of geographies. This is often achieved by...

The question implies a view on artistic practice informed by a liberal framework of reception and interpretation: artistic practices are expected to politely negotiate within and with the larger sphere of culture; they are expected to expose, reveal, unmask, reform and finally find a place within various institutional configurations. The...

The MENA region is not short of attempts by cultural practitioners to interrogate, negotiate and redefine 'the public' (as manifested in the form of an institution, a public space, an audience, or the essentials of civil society). Some of most potent images of events over the last year in the...

Cultural institutions in Turkey are divided into those run by the state, local governments and private sectors; each have different culture policies and no significant collaborative policies. Contemporary art productions and practices are based in Istanbul and are dependent on private sector investments, rather than official funds. Compared to the...

Can or should or will? Everything is possible, while a lot less is likely. These to me are three discrete topics: the health of institutions; public space (itself a maligned, misused term, most of the time); and civil society. I think if artists – or curators, or any agent involved...

I will limit myself to tackling the situation from the point of view of the ‘common ground’, which is lost or has never been found. There is a wide gap between art practice on one side and the institutions on the other; the first doing the minimum in terms of...

Partner institutions

Antonia Carver in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Anthony Downey: Introduction to 'Future Imperfect'

Alia Rayyan: Recounting the Past, Present and Future

Hussam al-Saray: in conversation with Ala Younis | A Cultural Encyclopaedia of Iraq

Nile Sunset Annex: Plotting in Egypt: Art People

Lois Stonock: Mapping the Possible: Syrian Organizations, Movements and Platforms

Ibraaz

Decolonizing Architecture at Tate Modern

William Wells in conversation at Serpentine Galleries

Mario Rizzi

To close Ibraaz Platform 010, we present new essays by Ibraaz Editor-in-Chief Anthony Downey, Ibraaz Senior Editor Stephanie Bailey, Ibraaz Contributing Editor Ala Younis, and Natasha Hoare; interviews with Szabolcs KissPál and Mahmoud Khaled, Toleen Touq, Cevdet Erek, Hammad Nasar; projects by Shadi Habib Allah, Mahmoud Bakhshi, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi,...

Platform 010 Editorial

Mega-museums and modern artists from the Middle East

Ibraaz 5th Year Anniversary Editorial

Socially Engaged Art Practices in Tunisia

'The following considerations on performance as an artistic medium in the region of North Africa and Middle East refer to more general problems that relate to the art form's status as an institutionalized aesthetic practice...'

Re-Thinking Cultural Development in Palestine

Arts Infrastructures and Institutions in Libya Post-Dictatorship

In a globalized and quite complex world we need 'tools' to help shape our societies. This is what art institutions could be: giant toolboxes!

"Neither identification with an institution nor disengagement from an institution guarantees fluid, sensitive attitudes and openmindedness."

Working with archives is a relatively new development, only recently have artists and institutions had access to archives. In the Middle East in general, the idea of the archive and of history is very vague. Even the idea of archiving, of having an institution that holds an archive, is new.

Street art in Tunisia has appeared more and more since the early days of the 'revolution'. But this phenomenon was already there long before events took place. Certain activists – artists working in graphic and visual communication – invaded public spaces to express their grievances. They no longer wanted to...

Since the 25th of January 2011, a traditional arts programming model has become functionally irrelevant in Egypt. In this context of conflict and change, diverse publics have asked to use Townhouse's spaces in ways that extend far beyond the scope of visual arts exhibitions. Consequently, over the past year, we...

'What do we do when as artists we are invited to behave as liberal democratic [beings]? You have your own space, each has their own little house, we can all live together; does this not sound like the idea of a Lebanon of all the different mosaics and cohabitation -...

Artistic practices can offer many insights, but it is important to remember that when art’s role is reduced to a tool for social development or economic prospects, it ceases to be art. Rather than provide a broad qualification of the use value of art in the world, it can be...

A recent project led by Walid Raad attempted to draw attention to, and improve the treatment of, migrant workers on Saadiyat Island by Guggenheim and its Abu Dhabi partner, the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC). Tactics were initially conducted privately but when it was clear to those involved that...

How artistic practices define and negotiate public space is to me the most significant issue in the question posed, which I will begin to discuss in the context of Algiers. The site specific practice of Amina Menia testifies to both the richness of meaning and difficulties of execution endemic to...

Writing on the Walls: Transition, A Photographic Series by Myriam Abdelaziz

Cultural Institutions, Urban Development, and Regional Cinema in the Gulf Today

The two-year-old MASS Alexandria, founded by artist Wael Shawky in the working-class neighbourhood of Miami in east Alexandria, Egypt, aims to create a space for the production and dissemination of ideas and debates concerning contemporary visual culture. Apart from displaying and encouraging the consumption of art through exhibitions, it creates...

When Umru' al-Qais stood by the traces of the tent of his beloved in the middle of the desert of Hijaz, he shed tears that became the key to Arab poetry. Until recently, no one could have guessed that those tents would one day be made of concrete. These days,...

From Brute Ornament: Seher Shah's Recent Drawings

On-longing: A Project by Saba Innab

Dictaphone Group is a collaboration between performance artist Tania El Khoury and urban researcher architect Abir Saksouk-Sasso, whose aim is to research specific urban spaces in Lebanon. Issues of public space and public amenities, or indeed the lack thereof in Beirut, come to the fore in Bus Cemetery, a sound-based...

Home Workspace: A Conversation Between Christine Tohme and Anthony Downey

The Past is Another Country: Two Projects by Sinisa Vlajkovic

There is no doubt that artists are addressing this question and its associated issues in their work, as anywhere in the world. However the region comprises so many different descriptions of civil society; the politics and economics of one country enable while those in another disable. Volatility can be a...

Dar al-Ma'mûn is a new arts centre and residency for artists and translators outside of Marrakech. The questions of public space and of civil society have been with us since the beginning, as we were trying to avoid creating a mere retreat for artists, a luxurious ivory tower for intellectuals...

'The young conservatives embrace the fundamental experience of aesthetic modernity – the disclosure of a de-centered subjectivity, freed from all constraints of rational cognition and purposiveness, from all imperatives of labour and utility – and in this way break out of the modern world. They transpose the spontaneous power of...

A friend recently asked me, what would be my dream cultural/art space in Ramallah? In the midst of rapid urban construction in Ramallah, my impulse is not to build another building but create what is lacking – an open public space. I feel this would be an artistic, political and...

Critical reflections on Ibraaz publications

Humans from Palestine, The Karimeh Abbud Award Exhibition: Bethlehem

Sites of Return: Ramallah

Cities Exhibition 5, 'Gaza – Reconstruction': Ramallah

Cities Exhibition 5, 'Gaza – Reconstruction': Gaza

O Whale, Don't Swallow Our Moon: Ramallah

Pattern Recognition: Ramallah

A Series of Un-Curated Events: Ramallah

/Tilted/: Ramallah

RE/viewing Jerusalem #2 – REturn: Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Show VIII 'Before and After Origins': Jerusalem

Moments for Possibilities 'Air, Land and Sea': London

This Sea is Mine: Amman

This Sea is Mine: Gaza

Sea of Stories: Beirut

The People of the Sea: Haifa

Biographies

After Thoughts: Shuruq Harb

Programme Downloads

Acknowledgements

Encounters Programme

Bethlehem

Amman

London

Ramallah & Al-Bireh

Jerusalem

Haifa

Gaza

Beirut

Contextual Notes: Rawan Sharaf Reema Salha Fadda Stephanie Bailey

Reflections: Ala Younis Adania Shibli

Foreword: Anthony Downey

Introduction: Qi2016 Curatorial Team

Responses

A roundtable discussion

Ismaïl Bahri in conversation with Silke Schmickl

Ahmet Öğüt in conversation with Basak Senova

Jack Persekian in conversation with Basak Senova

Christine Tohme in conversation with Anthony Downey

Michket Krifa in conversation with Wafa Gabsi

Shady El Noshokaty in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Nathan Witt in conversation with Amira Gad

Chapter 1: Intensities

Hassan Khan in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Jasmina Metwaly in conversation with Angela Harutyunyan

Zeina Arida in conversation with Laura Allsop

Rasha Salti in conversation with Fawz Kabra

Ayah Bdeir in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Michael Rakowitz in conversation with Anthony Downey

Mario Rizzi in conversation with Dorothea Schoene

Visualizing Palestine in conversation with Haig Aivazian

Seth Anziska in conversation with Daniella Rose King

Fulya Erdemci in conversation with Basak Senova

Marie-Monique Steckel in conversation with Fawz Kabra

Chapter 2: Details

Editor's Foreword: Anthony Downey

Preface: Jack Persekian

Online exhibition catalogue

A View from the City: Tina Sherwell

Looking at Wafaa Bilal's Domestic Tension : Barrak Alzaid

End of War in Iraq: The Yes Men and Steve Lambert

OLGA'S NOTES, all those restless bodies: Marwa Arsanios

Lina Majdalanie in conversation with Göksu Kunak

Rasha Salti and Kristine Khouri in conversation with Samah Hijawi

Magdi Mostafa in conversation with Clelia Coussonnet

Sohrab Kashani in conversation with Taus Makhacheva

Speaker Biographies + Synopses

Curatorial Narrative

Online exhibition catalogue

Farah Al-Nakib in conversation with Todd Reisz

Closing Remarks

Abdullah Al-Mutairi in conversation with Sarah Abu Abdallah

Mahmoud Khaled in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Gülsün Karamustafa in conversation with Basak Senova

Koyo Kouoh in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Reza Aramesh in conversation with Lara Atallah

Reem Fadda in conversation with Fawz Kabra

JW Stella in conversation with Aimee Dawson

Alya Sebti in conversation with Göksu Kunak

Marwa Arsanios in conversation with Fawz Kabra

Taysir Batniji in conversation with Silke Schmickl

ismaël in conversation with Wafa Gabsi

Adham Hafez in conversation with Suzy Halajian

Lara Khaldi in conversation with Ghalya Saadawi

Hassan Sharif in conversation with Nujoom Al Ghanem

Caveh Zahedi in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Robin Kahn in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Adelita Husni-Bey in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Mario Rizzi in conversation with Cristiana Perrella

Hiwa K in conversation with Anthony Downey and Amal Khalaf

Oreet Ashery in conversation with Amal Khalaf

Navine G. Khan-Dossos in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Mohssin Harraki in conversation with Karima Boudou

Özgür Uçkan and Vasif Kortun in conversation with Basak Senova

Walid Siti in conversation with Nat Muller

Rabih Mroué in conversation with Anthony Downey

Mohanad Yaqubi in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Stefano Rabolli Pansera in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Eric Van Hove in conversation with Natasha Hoare

Nav Haq in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Sumesh Sharma in conversation with Amanprit Sandhu

Leeza Ahmady in conversation with Taus Makhacheva

Jonas Staal in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Köken Ergun in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Mai Elwakil in conversation with Daniella Rose King

The Arab Digital Expression Foundation in conversation with Laura Cugusi

Tarek Atoui in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Monira Al Qadiri in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Burak Arıkan in conversation with Basak Senova

Hisham Al-Madhloum in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Eungie Joo in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Jananne Al-Ani in conversation with Nat Muller

Discussing arts infrastructure in Tehran

Maryam Jafri in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Lucien Samaha in conversation with Walid Raad, Part I

Ahmed Nagy in conversation with Mai Elwakil

Ali Cherri in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Akram Zaatari in conversation with Anthony Downey

Elif Öner in conversation with Derya Yücel

Wael Shawky in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Parastou Forouhar in conversation with David Hodge and Hamed Yousefi

Ayşe Erkmen in conversation with Basak Senova

Nida Sinnokrot in conversation with Natasha Hoare

Carole Alfarah in conversation with María Gómez López

Suha Shoman in conversation with Amin Alsaden

Hicham Khalidi in conversation with Daniella Rose King

Kamel Lazaar in conversation with Anthony Downey

Jumana Manna in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Younes Bouadi in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Tarek Abou El Fetouh in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Rifat Chadirji and Balkis Sharara in conversation with Amin Alsaden

MADRASSA Collective in conversation with Antonia Alampi

Leung Chi Wo in conversation with Robin Peckham

Lamia Joreige in conversation with Anthony Downey

Christine Tohme in conversation with Rachel Dedman

Nora Razian, Nataša Petrešin Bachelez, and Angela Harutyunyan in conversation, with a contribution from Natasha Gasparian

Héla Ammar in conversation with Wafa Gabsi

Amar Kanwar in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Fadi Bardawil in conversation with Zeynep Oz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Sharjah Art Foundation, 17-19 March 2012

Art and Culture in the ‘Imagined’ Arab World, Cornerhouse, Manchester, 13 April 2012

Ibraaz

Isabella Ellaheh Hughes

Coline Milliard

Rachida Triki

Sara Raza

Notes from a roundtable discussion on the state of the arts in Egypt

A roundtable discussion at Tate Modern contemplates the role of alternative education

An Artist-Run Gallery Space in Cairo

Questions to be addressed

Ibraaz

The Institute for Human Activities

Ibraaz in partnership with Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art

Regional vis-à-vis Global Discourses: Contemporary Art from the Middle East

The role of the archive in critical and culturally located art histories

Ibraaz

The second meeting of Maghreb des Arts

A Report on Future City

Future Imperfect, A Symposium

Ibraaz

09–11 May, Museé National du Bardo, Tunis

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Edge of Arabia Launches Culturunners

Ibraaz

Theme: Performance

Tom Snow

News JAOU Tunis 2015 008 / 18 May 2015 Jaou Tunis 2015. Copyright Kamel Lazaar Foundation. Visual Culture in an Age of Global Conflict The Kamel Lazaar Foundation is pleased to announce that it will stage a two-day conference at the National Museum of Bardo from 28–29 May, 2015. This...

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

A Report from Home Works 7 and Athens Biennale 5 to 6

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

The Art for Tomorrow Conference 2016 in Doha

The 2016 March Meeting

Ibraaz

Two Exhibitions on the Armenian Legacy in Anatolia

Videobrasil

Ibraaz

An Odd Piece of Research on the Many Virtues of Oriental Imagination

At the Salzburger Kunstverein

Aimee Dawson

Shuruq Harb: On Agency

Köken Ergun: Lived Experience

Burak Arikan & Başak Şenova: Network Data

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Live

Okwui Enwezor: in conversation with Anthony Downey

1971-1979 The Short Seventies (World)

Crisis The End of Pearling in the Gulf (Qatar)

1972-1982 Spaceship Sheraton and the Making of Doha's Masterplans

1971-1979 The Short Seventies (UAE)

Hassan Sharif

Anthony Downey: Editor-in-Chief, Ibraaz

Moncef Dhouib: Theatre- and film-maker

Tania El Khoury: Live artist

Rita Alaoui: Artist

Hiwa K.: Artist

Oumaïma Manai: Choreographer

Ghazi Gherairi: Professor of Law, Carthage University

Kamel Lazaar: Founder, Kamel Lazaar Foundation

Adel Abidin: Artist

Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi: Writer

Antonia Carver: Director, Art Dubai

Ibraaz

Hiwa K.

APEAL's 'Museum in the Making' and Temporary. Art. Platform. present: The 2016 Ras Masqa Artists' Residency

Murtaza Vali: 'Arresting Flows, Stacking Forms'

Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi

Sama Alshaibi

Deceptive Authoritarianisms: Between Artificial and Discredited Personhoods

Notes Toward a Theory of Transformative Justice

Contour Biennale 8 / DAI Roaming Assembly #12

Edited by Anthony Downey (IB Tauris, 2014)

Edited by Anthony Downey (IB Tauris, 2015)

Hammad Nasar in conversation with Reema Salha Fadda

Toleen Touq in conversation with Reema Salha Fadda

A two-part conversation with Szabolcs KissPál and Mahmoud Khaled

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On Navigating Without a Compass

Ala Younis

Notes on Geo-cultural Exhibitions

Stephanie Bailey

Art By Email at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Yazan Ashqar

Meeting Points 8

On Qalandiya International 2016 in Ramallah

Negative Ecstasy at Dirimart, Istanbul

The Egyptian Surrealists (1938–1965)

Rupture, War and Surrealism in Egypt (1938–1948) at the Centre Pompidou

Closing Remarks

Vikram Divecha at Tashkeel

Exhibitions and Other Representations in 25 Years at Witte de With

The Art of Shirin Neshat

Sophia Al-Maria at the Whitney Museum of American Art

Reflections on Reflections

Etel Adnan at Serpentine Galleries

Gülsün Karamustafa Retrospective at Hamburger Bahnhof

Rayyane Tabet at Museo Marino Marini

Lara Baladi

Walking Cabbages and Watermelons

Rozemin Keshvani

Participatory Art in the Middle East

On Assumption and Authority

An Introduction to Platform 010

Organic Growth and the Rise of Visual Arts Organizations in the UAE

Barrak Alzaid

What are the urgent questions affecting cultural production in Turkey? I am writing from the perspective of Turkey, rather than the perspective of the Middle East and North Africa in general...

The varying political, cultural and economic circumstances of the participants of Art Dubai 2016, Design Days and the March Meeting, merit further consideration, as it is the differences among them that highlight the current constraints and opportunities for cultural production in the region.

As a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle Eastern art, I am concerned with the urgent questions facing cultural production as well as those facing histories of cultural production. My response below reflects that concern.

Of course, I do not wish to be misunderstood as arguing for nativism or closure. But the specific history of the region matters deeply, as factual evidence, but even more so in terms of identifying resources that can be transformed and activated in new ways today.

To answer this question I propose an excerpt from a text in progress called 'Art and Garbage'. This piece is intended to look into the relation between urgent social problems – in this case the ongoing garbage crisis in Lebanon – and contemporary art.

There is never a neutral position for critique, but there certainly ought to be the practice of critique. And that is precisely the element that is missing in top-down formation of the art scene in West Asia and North Africa, and perhaps in the rest of the non-western art scene.

The development of a healthy regional Arab art scene, like anywhere else in the world, requires the collaborative efforts of the different components that constitute it.

Anthony Downey

Choreographing Spaces of Gesticulation

Ahmad Makia

Shady El Noshokaty at Gypsum Gallery, Cairo

The 14th Istanbul Biennial 2015

Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will

Maraya Art Centre

A Nomadological Study of Ottoman Arab Photography

Practice, Performance, Politics

Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible

Determining the Axis of the Global South and Middle East

'Too Early, Too Late: Middle East and Modernity' at the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

A Curatorial Take on the Global South

Natasha Ginwala

Notes on a Giant Implosion

Monira Al Qadiri

Five Stages of an Artist Residency

On Bouchra Khalili’s Cartographies

On Nikolaj Larsen's End of Dreams

Anthony Downey

Nikos Papastergiadis and Gerardo Mosquera

Pan-Kaffirism in Iraq, South Africa, and Sri Lanka

The Cultural Centre of the Philippines opened to great political fanfare on 10 September 1969, with a ceremony that was graced by none less than California Governor Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy acting on the orders of President Nixon.

The term 'Global South' is quite new to me – but since my practice is concerned with the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and the impact colonialism has on today's power structures I find it obvious that the concept of the 'Global South' is of great relevance in my...

A Provocation to the Question

Conflicting Narratives and the Invention of Geographies

Burak Delier

A Recourse to the Past

Here and Elsewhere at the New Museum

A Yemeni Art History

Can T-Wall Murals really Beautify the Fragmented Baghdad?

In the Shadow of Nasser

Object Lessons from Saadiyat Island and Gehry’s Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi

Mounira Al Solh at Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut

Burak Delier at Iniva

Imagining the Future, Assembling the Past

What Does It Mean to Be Building a Library in Iraq?

'I don't believe culture is nowadays negotiating social activity, political engagement and critical practices. Culture is following the forces of the market.'

'By producing an idea of the future, art transgresses official history and produces its own reality.'

'I suggest that we look at the past and present strengths of cultural organizations, which have always served social and informational purposes, regardless of region and time. It is in these two spheres that the future resides.'

'The future of arts looks promising, but it also risks looking stale if we're not too careful. I will concentrate here on what I think are important considerations in the shaping of spaces of encounter.'

'When one speaks of 'art infrastructures', it is crucial to recognize that infrastructures are, most importantly, people...and one of the most critical and urgent needs is for arts education.'

'Better imagine now, rather than later.'

'The future of art infrastructures in the region is still very much determined by pre-existing cultural misconceptions applied to audiences... During the last four years in Cairo, I've witnessed in several occasions how part of the audience has been marginalized according to nationality, class, race or economic income.'

Reflections on Ashkal Alwan's Home Workspace Program, 2013-14

Reflections on Ashkal Alwan's Home Workspace Program, 2013-14

Slavs and Tatars at The Third Line

The Sharjah Art Foundation's 2014 March Meeting

Mirene Arsanios

A Perspective on Algeria's Cultural Scene

A Review

Haig Aivazian’s multi-piece installation FUGERE at Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Israel's National Photography Archives as a Case Study

Abdullah Al-Mutairi

Mounira Al Solh

Leung Chi Wo

Mohamed Fariji

Mohamed Abdelkarim

Mahmoud Khaled

Monira Al Qadiri

Thoughts on Art and Art Discourse

A Project by Robin Kahn

A Project by Lara Baladi with an introduction by Dorothea Schoene

Naira Antoun

Makan

Dream Homes and Community-building

A Project by Saba Innab

A Libyan Diary (Part III) - December 2011

A Libyan Diary (Part II) - November 2011

A Libyan Diary (Part I) - October 2011

Marwa Arsanios

The Society of False Witnesses

Navine G. Khan-Dossos

Tahrir Archives

Written by Mayssa Fattouh

Sohrab Kashani

An Online Performance

I envision the liberation of an archive (from attachment to a person, state, or region) through its transfiguration into a database. This emancipation requires dematerialization and displacement.

...one of the main problems with modernity in the Arab World is the lack of credibility, criticality and scrutiny in understanding, presenting, and evaluating its nature and objects.

On Shuruq Harb's The Keeper

Dispatch One: the Artist and the Archive, June–September 2013

Ibraaz Platform 006 Editorial

The Recordings of the Cosmopolitan

The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore

Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh’s 'A photographic conversation from Burj al-Shamali Camp'

When family members die they take their memories, facts and figures with them. Their stories, as well as their lies and omissions, become harder to track after they've gone. They leave behind mountains of material , with few entry points. If you dare to enter, you will find yourself alone...

The 4th Thessaloniki Biennale

Repatriation of Iraq's Looted Heritage under International and Domestic Law and Practice

/si:n/ Festival of Video Art and Performance, Ramallah

The 13th Istanbul Biennial

Farah Makni Hendaoui

Contemporary Artistic Practice in Iran at a Revolutionary Moment

The Encyclopedic Palace

Saloua Raouda Choucair, Ibrahim El-Salahi and Meschac Gaba at Tate Modern

Omar Kholeif

Literary Affects and the New Political by Tarek El-Ariss

The Making of the Artwork by the Artist, the Museum and the Public

Profiles: Collecting Art in Lebanon at AUB Gallery, Lebanon

Institute of Contemporary Art, London

Tinkerings on the Instable Present Tense

Amy Charlesworth

Is soft power helping or hindering the state of the arts in Jordan?

Shifting the Geographies of Sensing, Believing and Knowing

Ibraaz Platform 005 Editorial

Aid and the Politics of Art in Processes of Contemporary Cultural Production

Looking for Palestine in the Jordanian Music Scene

Gulf Labor

An Exhibition between Cairo and London

Basim Magdy at Newman Popiashvili

The Problem of Nationality

A Talk and Screening by Shabbir Hussain Mustafa

It stipulates in my working contract as a professor in Middle East history at Leiden University that I must participate in 'media outreach'. This means that I must either seek out media outlets and contribute to a particular conversation about the Middle East, or, if contacted by a media representative,...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the word 'demand' seems to be the key word of the poll. In relation to a 'globalised cultural economy' it refers to the core term of economics that is used to rationalise the development of prices. Talking about 'demands of news media, journalism, cultural...

In the 1990s, it would have been difficult to find an artist in Egypt who thought that any of their contemporaries would sell their work at international auction and for thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars at that. Artists were busy negotiating other, more immediately local, elements of a...

Introduction

Artistic Practice from Tirana to Tangier

Khalil Rabah: Pages 7, 8, 9 at e-flux

Artistic Practices, Collective Action and Civil Society in Tunisia

The Story of Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout

A New Communal Model

Jens Maier-Rothe

The Shifting Narrative of Uprising

Artistic Practices, Civil Society, and Secular Determination in Tunisia Today

Theatre As a Tool of Empowerment

A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh

Using new media tools and technologies available today has become standard practice for a range of activities; it's become a source of educational content and entertainment, as well as a means of communicating from conflict zones or even from the comfort of our homes. New media technologies available on smart...

A significant component of Sada's programming provides seminars, lectures, and workshops to young, emerging artists and students in Baghdad. We do this using basic Internet connection, Skype, some simple software, and a projector. A private Facebook group is the site of extensive conversations, critique and debate. This was not done...

One of the more important aspects of the uses of new media and in particular social media is the emergence and visualisation of online communities. These participant groups have utilised the tools offered by social media sites, such as the creation and exchange of user-generated content, to inform and influence...

vs. The Ruler was made during the first year of the Arab uprising. It is comprised of two custom-made wooden 'electrocution' chairs (thrones) sitting in opposition to each other. The patriarchal male throne suggests the military and religion. Its counterpart is also suggestive of Islamic architecture, but is grounded by...

An Introduction

The Practice of Contemporary Art in Algeria Today

Anthony Downey

Politics, Media and Art after the Arab Uprisings

Perceptions of Occupation and Control in Cyprus

For a Polysemic Reading of Both City and Territory

Yazid Anani

During the July sit-in in Tahrir Square in Cairo, the site of the revolution at the beginning of the year, a group of artists and filmmakers lit up a corner of the square with an open-source 'revolutionary' screen: Tahrir Cinema . Every night, a filmmaker, journalist or activist presented a...

As far as I can see, there is little room for blind people and too much space for those who don’t listen.

The scale of the resistance among the people of the MENA region in the last year will remain an example in contemporary history. This resistance expresses a desire to build new ground and another social entity, which up till now has been latent. The clear desire is to build a...

Initiated by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation in 2011, Ibraaz is the leading critical forum on visual culture in North Africa and the Middle East. We publish an annual online platform – consisting of essays, interviews, artists' projects, and platform responses – that focuses on research questions conceived through a network...

Ela Greenberg

Raymond Baker

Joe Khalil

When we began our research into the current art landscape of the Middle East, we noticed various reasons why the bonds between regional art communities are weakened. Prevailing art discourses are largely externally driven; the way in which art is circulated, marketed and publicised doesn't respond in any significant way...

For the past decades, culture, including visual art, has not been a priority for most governments in the region, and this has led to the status quo in fine arts we experience today. The isolation between the public and the arts is the result of the lack of serious programmes...

I believe that recent events and revolutions in the Middle East prove that getting acquainted with the region is more complicated than has been conveyed on the global scene until now. Behind a curtain of traditions, Middle Eastern people are dealing with the passion of globalization. My comments may only...

Mark Westmoreland

Aesthetics, Civil Society, and the Politics of Representation

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