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Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

For Ibraaz Platform 009, Hassan Darsi presents a photo essay.

Platform for discussion004 With the benefit of hindsight, what role does new media play in artistic practices, activism, and as an agent for social change in the Middle East and North Africa today? Basim Magdy 2 November 2012 Basim Magdy Every Subtle Gesture, 2012 - ongoing Colour prints on Fuji...

Digitised media in the last decade has undoubtedly been propelled by the enormous speed of new technology and spontaneous platforms for rights, defined by Hakim Bey as 'Temporary Autonomous Zones' and 'network guerrillas' by Ozgur Uckan. Consequently, despite the mediated content of the mainstream media, social media sites have emerged...

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Taysir Batniji 1 November 2011 Taysir Batniji Sans titre (Sénégal) 74, 2003 Photograph Courtesy of the artist '> Taysir Batniji Sans titre (Sénégal) 74, 2003 Photograph Courtesy of the artist '> Taysir Batniji Sans titre...

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Raafat Ishak 1 November 2011 Raafat Ishak Mount Appeal, 2011 Acrylic on MDF 65 x 50 cm Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne '> Raafat Ishak Mount Appeal, 2011 Acrylic on MDF 65...

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Newsha Tavakolian 1 November 2011 Newsha Tavakolian, 2011 Photograph Courtesy of the artist 7: Members of the voluntary paramilitary force, the baseej, shot and killed one man and wounded others in a one million strong...

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Haig Aivazian 1 November 2011 The Unimaginable Things We Build is a multi-part project exploring the evolution of the rhetoric surrounding, and material state of, the tallest man-made structure in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa....

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Fayçal Baghriche 1 November 2011 Fayçal Baghriche, Mekka, 2011, photograph, 120 x 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist. ' title=' Fayçal Baghriche, Mekka, 2011, photograph, 120 x 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist. '> Fayçal...

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Driss Ouadahi 1 November 2011 Driss Ouadahi Ainsi soit elle, 2011 Oil on canvas 190 x 240 cm Courtesy of the artist '> Driss Ouadahi Ainsi soit elle, 2011 Oil on canvas 190 x 240...

Platform for discussion002 What relationship does visual culture have to the world we live in? Anahita Razmi 1 November 2011 Anahita Razmi White Wall Tehran, 2007 Video, 0'49' Courtesy of the artist Anahita Razmi --> Anahita Razmi is an artist based in Stuttgart, Germany, working with video, photography and installation....

Platform for discussion001 What do we need to know about the MENA region today? Nazgol Ansarinia 1 June 2011 Nazgol Ansarinia Etelaat, from the Reflection series, 2011, paper collage, 21 x 21 cm. Courtesy of the artist. ' title=' Nazgol Ansarinia Etelaat, from the Reflection series, 2011, paper collage, 21...

Platform for discussion001 What do we need to know about the MENA region today? Mounir Fatmi 1 June 2011 Mounir Fatmi, Place Mehdi Ben Barka, 2008, photograph. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Hussenot, Paris. ' title=' Mounir Fatmi, Place Mehdi Ben Barka, 2008, photograph. Courtesy of the artist and...

Platform for discussion001 What do we need to know about the MENA region today? Jananne Al-Ani 1 June 2011 Jananne Al-Ani Aerial I, 2011 Stills from Shadow Sites II Single channel digital video Courtesy the artist and the Abraaj Capital Art Prize Photograph by Adrian Warren '> Jananne Al-Ani Aerial...

Platform for discussion001 What do we need to know about the MENA region today? Hrair Sarkissian 1 June 2011 Hrair Sarkissian Untitled No. 1, 2010 Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens - Thessaloniki '> Hrair Sarkissian Untitled No. 1, 2010 Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens - Thessaloniki '> Hrair Sarkissian Untitled No. 1,...

Platform for discussion001 What do we need to know about the MENA region today? Ahlam Shibli 1 June 2011 Peace and Love Ahlam Shibli Peace and Love (Untitled no. 1), Palestine, 2000 Gelatin silver print 57.7 x 38 cm Courtesy and © the artist '> Ahlam Shibli Peace and Love...

Ibraaz

Ibraaz

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

'Mixed Media I (2009) is a list of 50 pages of technical descriptions of contemporary art pieces. The list, made up of automatic extractions of data about techniques used in contemporary art practices, is a multi-format, translatable database...'

Adel Abidin presents Subway Scene (2015).

'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...'

'To avoid misunderstanding, I write from the perspective of Turkey, because I can't really speak for North Africa nor for the Middle East in general...'

'Do not pollute others' hearing with shameful sounds...'

'A few notes on the difference between performance art and mayonnaise...'

Anthony Downey

This research-based response marks the beginning of a collaborative project undertaken by Clare Davies and Nida Ghouse that considers histories of artistic production in relation to the concept of metanoia.

Instead of focusing on the location of the 'MENA' in the context of the Global South, I will speak from the perspective of how such a location is of relevance to South Asia (which will be excusable, I hope, since 'MENA' is often compounded with 'SA' to form MENASA in...

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.

In a recent video work, Mouthfeel (2014) and a related lecture-performance titled Playlist (2014), I focused on symmetries between forms of aspirational consumption in the Global South.

Embroiderers of Actuality is an action that aims to be a sensible provocation: a visual discussion about the position of women in the society.

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...

The group of paintings is inspired by 'momentary images' or more accurately frozen moments taken from the contemporary cityscape of Egypt, as well as from personal records; old photographs found in family albums.

In the years that followed the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which triggered the rise of post-colonial studies, the definition of the term 'the Global South' has changed dramatically.

Strategic though it may be, the binary of 'South' and 'North' is no less reductive than the stale binaries of yore: of 'East' and 'West', communist and capitalist, aesthetics and politics, the list goes on.

Building Institutions Through Practice

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."

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

'You can't draw desire, you have to walk it.'

'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.'

I felt the desire to examine the reverse process: what in art history and, more specifically, in the making of art, can contribute to the development of an archiving process?

Through art practices, particularly in this region, the artist might slip into this muddy area, which is mostly based on fetishes and collective political memory and which somehow stands on the most influential component of media archive. It is not necessarily only that which is visible and legible, but more...

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.

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.

The conceptual turn of the 1970s gave full legitimacy to queries into the document and the archive. Issues of memory become the favourite material of contemporary artists. Yet, in Tunisia, we missed the conceptual turn of the 1970s – it took us until the start of the revolution in 2011...

Akira Mizuta Lippit, in Atomic Light (Shadow Optics), characterizes the shadow archive as what cannot be archived, and therefore survives when the archive is destroyed. The shadow archive describes the majority of Arab cultural memory, which survives in non-visual traces, such as the work done by memory and imagination in...

The Soldier: 'Indeed, I took these photographs from the pocket of a dead Arab, killed in Bab Al-Wad in the beginning of May 1948.

The idea of the art archive in the Middle East provokes a number of associations – some of them spiritual, some historical, some clearly political.

From the photo-text series Getty vs. Ghana (2012).

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...

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,...

Firstly, and most immediately, I object to the characterisation of the context in which this question is situated. There is, of course, a marketplace for what we call cultural goods, including artworks, but there's no reason to situate all artworks immediately in an economy. Things that are made solely for...

The excited chatter about unrest and uprisings in the western world has focused particularly on a number of countries in North Africa and in what we here refer to as the Middle East (meaning anything between eighteen to thirty-eight countries according to Wikipedia). In the UK, we have received a...

Demonstrations by Palestinian villagers against Israeli colonisation has been described by non-local media sources as 'theatrics' and 'spectacle.' Such categorisation positions Palestinian acts of protest in the realm of 'acting'- a visual 'show' for the cameras, complete with homemade props, a soundtrack of chants performed to the rhythm of Israeli...

A few Middle Eastern and North African countries having a strong control over means of expression are now present in some major artistic international events such as the Venice Biennale. The concept of national pavilions provides a vivid example demonstrating how international relations and diplomatic issues can influence artistic productions...

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...

Basim Magdy, 13 Essential Rules for Understanding the World , 2011, super 8 film transferred to HD video, 5 min. 16 sec. Courtesy the artist and Newman Popiashvili Gallery, New York.

The globalisation of the modern art world is a fact. The rise of new economic powers has led to a shift in the balance of power in the art world as well. No longer is there one centre. Instead, we are faced with a mosaic of centres spread around the...

This is a big question with a lot of big words so I can either try and break down the question and resolve some of the semantic issues with it or simplify the question and try and answer that. Either way my response could be an essay, which I don't...

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...

A new book has surfaced on the shelves of Lebanese and possibly Arab bookstores. The title reads: Pure Nostalgia . As in Exclusive Nostalgia, as in free from this contaminated present . The emergence of this publication is perhaps symptomatic of something larger than a trivial nostalgia quenched by the...

In the globalised world we live in, I feel that creating the image of an enemy becomes a difficult task. It becomes difficult to name and make symbols for an enemy – an abstract 'evil' – since things are never abstract, but always and at any time connected and related.

In certain respects, the demands on contemporary artists issued forth by a (purportedly novel) globalised cultural economy are starkly obvious in the Arab world. The concurrent fascination with contemporary art and the region has resulted in the now well-documented - and equally well-debated - critical and curatorial investment in contemporary...

Some artists in these parts of the world began using new media in their work in the 1990s. This happened for a number of reasons but the most important one, I believe, was that of reaching the general public, which was far from being interested in art. In this respect,...

'Networks have no inside, only radiating connectors. They are all edges. They provide connections but no structure. One does not reside in a network, but rather moves to other points through the edges'. Bruno Latour, 'Some Experiments in Art and Politics', e-flux journal, 03/2011. With the benefit of hindsight, one...

Shining a spotlight on something in order to 'make it visible' is a task indeed. It does not only entail personal and professional risk but also demands courage and responsibility. The ethics of monstration (on behalf of those whose intention is precisely that - to make sense of vision, to...

Selçuk Artut. Courtesy of the artist.

A video by Ali Cherri.

New media has played a role in artistic practices, activism and social change for a long time, and we are increasingly seeing artists using and manipulating images from mainstream media and circulating them online to elucidate political causes.

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...

Artists have for some time been using new media to investigate and question their mainstream socio-political environments. In Arab countries, the revolutions that took place are a direct expression of this process's shift from the art community to the mass, from the artist to the public. It was a mutation...

When we talk about media, whether we consider them old or new, and critical practices, whether we label them as artistic, activist or hybrid, we would do well to look at issues of embodiment, and where virtual presence and physical presence intersects. The Arab uprisings have shown that no matter...

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...

Can the subaltern tweet? asked Lisa Nakamura, in response to the formulation 'social media caused the Arab Spring'. If Spivak famously deconstructed the promotion of democracy by supremacist means, Nakamura and others subsequently dismantled the digital orientalism latent in rhetoric suggesting that a US twittersphere galvanised Arab revolutionaries against Arab...

New media's role as an agent for social change in the MENA region has been somewhat sensationalised by mainstream media in referring to recent incidents of unrest as 'Facebook' or 'Twitter revolutions'. Whether used for the purpose of social exchange or as part of an artistic practice, real-time communication and...

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...

The state of the Internet, or more specifically, the state of 'online surfing' is similar to that of dreaming; things leach into each other according to a logic that does not belong to us and cannot be correlated to our chronological time; images are constantly morphing into ghosts of other...

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...

The digitally mediated world operates as a gigantic magnet for centralisation, regulation and control by giving shape to our lives, our languages and bodies. This means that the digital domain is increasingly becoming the very location of politics. I propose the term 'magnetic' as an invitation to re-think audio-visual artwork...

I treated a young homeless kid to some tea at the local coffee shop one morning and asked him how he usually spent his day. He told me he would hang out on the street, ask people for money so that later in the evening he would go to the...

I Think I Love You is an installation of oil paintings produced by art workers in Dafen, China. Paintings are crafted as replicas of a single, publicly-distributed image of His Highness Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, and constitutional monarch of...

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...

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....

'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 -...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

'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...

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...

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...

Nada Sehnaoui, Fractions of Memory 2003, installation. In the world we live in, where public spaces are meagre, artists create visual ideas where the onlooker becomes an active citizen. Installation artist Nada Sehnaoui deals with collective memory and identity, communicated in unused large public areas in Beirut, Lebanon (Fractions of...

Critique of Middle Eastern art often demands that the relationship between visual culture and our world be overtly socio-political to be relevant. There is no denying that visual culture is a powerful outlet for peaceful protest. And there is certainly merit in preserving ethnicity and providing an authentic representation of...

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

Visual culture in a country like Morocco does not differ from its counterparts in the rest of those countries that remain, to some extent, beneath a foreign-made umbrella. The production of the image in the post-colonial age compels us strongly to undergo subordination to foreign ideologies, because this is a...

It is so difficult to imagine the people in the world now getting their cultural resources without a visual component, especially in the Arab world where the photograph is becoming increasingly dominant in the media. For example, most newspapers and Arabic magazines are giving much more space to photographs, considering...

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...

Nowadays, visual culture is considered to be a vehicle for the constant delivering of messages of identity to the public. The image has become the universal means of recalling to an audience the history of how we speak; how we think; and how we envision the future. Until a few...

By bicycle, he travels the roads and the districts searching for an answer to his many questions. He is a man, Tunisian, Arab, Berber and a native with roots in the Maghreb, Africa, the Middle East ... He is of this Earth and these oceans.

Visual Culture since 3000BC

Cardboards are leaned against a wall in a street. They form a peculiar assemblage one can identify as makeshift shelters. Fashioned out of the detritus of consumer society, the cardboards have become facades. They conceal women who were probably repudiated by their families. One of them emerges from her 'house'...

This is a very wide question and impossible to answer in a book, let alone a paragraph. However, it could boil down to two questions concerning visual artists, rather than visual culture per se: What can art do? And do artists have a responsibility to react and respond to their...

Middle Eastern culture, which is Islamic and mainly very conservative, is in the process of redefining its interpretation of, and relationship to, visual culture. The role of contemporary art in the Middle East is different to that in many parts of world. Design, advertising, media, performance, photography, conceptual art, new...

It is in protest.

01: An old woman gets into a taxi and asks the driver to take her somewhere. The driver hits the accelerator and takes off. As they arrive at a traffic light, the driver hits the gas and speeds across the red light. The old lady panics and screams; 'Why did...

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 so many decades the region of MENA has been synonymous with religious extremism, oppression of women, dictatorial regimes and, at varying levels, high rates of illiteracy and backwardness. In the last decade of the twentieth century the region has seen various political tumults including Islamic terrorism and its war...

People only ever have the degree of freedom that their audacity wins from fear. Les peuples n'ont jamais que le degré de liberté que leur audace conquiert sur la peur. Stendhal

The question 'What do we need to know about the MENA region today?' triggered a series of questions from my part. My contribution will be these questions; the aim is to start a game of Q&Q (instead of a Q&A) with no rules and no time limits. Who is this...

One of the important developments required in the region is the expansion of a critical discourse on local artistic practices. It is crucial to gain an in-depth understanding of the various generations of art practitioners, through detailed studies of their work in relation to the relevant contexts and debates. Research...

The project stems from an observation and an attendant question: there is clearly a thriving, politically motivated, post-conceptual art in the MENA area (Walid Raad, Walid Sadek, Decolonizing Palestine, Khalil Rabah, Djamel Kokene, Yto Barrada, Lasserre and Yacoub and so on) which, given its relationship to the territory of art...

There are two things we need to know. Firstly, we need to know what we know, that is, how much or how little? Secondly, we need to know who 'we' are in this context. Obviously, there is a different 'we' at stake, whether inside or outside the region, as well...

Cities have long been sites for conflict, from war and the oppressions of dictators to racisms and religious hatreds. And yet, where national states have historically responded by militarizing conflict, cities have tended to triage conflict through commerce and civic activity. Often the overcoming of urban conflicts became the source...

Samah Hijawi Documents for a Narrative of Art History of Jordan, 2010-ongoing M ulti-media project Video excerpt, 1'40" Courtesy of the artist This ongoing research project is concerned with different aspects that have influenced the development of visual art practices in Jordan over the last 60 years. It uses multi-media...

Sitting in the sweltering sun of Sharjah on a large rolled carpet on the open esplanade facing the museum, I express to an acquaintance, my uneasiness and inability to respond to the question. We need MENA (I had continually mistaken it for MENASA, unconsciously adding yet another region to the...

In an email dialogue between Beirut-based architect Tony Chakar and critic Stephen Wright (published in the catalogue for Out of Beirut at Modern Art Oxford in 2006), Chakar takes Wright to task for his habitual use of the label 'Middle East': 'The more I thought about it the more it...

This question is like a trap: 'what do we need to know about the MENA region today?' It feels like a trap, or a puzzle, rather than like a question because it was asked with no explanations. The only indication I had was that the answer should not exceed 200...

One needs to be careful with the concept of regions as geographical entities. Such an understanding is only valuable if it takes into account the way these regions relate to their neighbours, as frontiers are still too often frontiers of misunderstanding. The Middle East, like North Africa or the so-called...

For this project I have used a pinhole square-format camera to take urban pictures of a metropolis. From the start, this device produced a paradox. The long exposure times and the low quality of the images it takes do not fit with the documentary genre. Intentionally I have used the...

When initially presented with the task of summing up the nearly two-dozen nations that are lumped together under this peculiar acronym, my immediate impulse was to emphasize that it is impossible to describe such a vast region in less than 200 words. Even the few commonalities that do exist among...

The Middle East today is witnessing a clash of visual narratives. Images of aging dictators clinging on to their youth, clash with those of fresh-faced protestors. Scenes of medieval methods of curbing freedom of expression – as seen in the thugs on camel and horseback in Tahrir Square in Cairo...

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...

In Lebanon, we live surrounded by dead people looking at us. Since the beginning of the civil wars, posters have covered the walls of the city. They are images of men, martyrs who died tragically while fighting or on mission, or who were political figures and were murdered. For years,...

The Middle East is not a safe place. It is either the source of news, or the witness of strange incidents. Its streets and cities are under the threat of suicidal terrorists and of tribal religious wars. The Middle East is unpredictable: its aging dictators fall overnight, its borders have...

Two-Hundred and Thirty Three What can I say In order to be vigilant? How do I organize pessimism Into surviving fireflies? What and where are these images, Like germs germinating, Gestating in the belly of some vowel That lingers after all horizons are Gone ...

Sama Alshaibi Sweep , 2010 Courtesy of Selma Feriani Gallery, London and on air on ikono TV The question 'What do we need to know about the MENA region today?' poses an important and challenging demand on the respondents. With regards to the art, you can easily point at world...

Chamber of Public Secrets Here, There, Then, Elsewhere, 2011 Video, 21' Produced by CPS Chamber of Public Secrets

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...

'If we try to solve society's problems without overcoming the confusion and aggression in our own state of mind, then our efforts will only contribute to the basic problems, instead of solving them.' Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior (1984)

Richard Sennett calls 'we' a weasel word. Which 'we' is hailed in this project? Let's say that this 'we' is in the West, and that it doesn't include politicians and policy-makers but ordinary people. My answer to this question is certainly different than it would have been six months ago....

When did the major museums of the West start taking contemporary Middle Eastern art into consideration? After 2006, with the first successful sale of Middle Eastern contemporary art by Christie's in Dubai, and the announcement shortly afterwards that Abu Dhabi was going to invest billions in museum creation. Of course,...

History repeats itself – this line used across the disciplines is a proven liturgy to contemporary compendiums. When you detail the visual narratives, the region becomes the medium designed to mark your place in history. Whether in the Stone Age or the Digital Age, information is your power, and revolution...

The political and cultural density of the Middle East is as diverse, rich and complex as that of Central Europe with which it shares a history of struggle about disputed borders, clashing ideologies and religious turmoil. The fact that the term by which the region is commonly identified is a...

Platform for discussion001 What do we need to know about the MENA region today?

Platform for discussion006 What role can the archive play in developing and sustaining a critical and culturally located art history?

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Questions to be addressed

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

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Theme: Performance

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,...

Anthony Downey

A tool-guide by Temporary. Art. Platform. (T.A.P.) with Nayla Geagea

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

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

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

Platform 010 Editorial

Ala Younis

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

An Introduction to Platform 010

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

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

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

Ibraaz Platform 006 Editorial

Ibraaz Platform 005 Editorial

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...

نصوص تقاطع الأعمال الفنّيّة

مدن 5 | غزة، باللون الأحمر

"الأيدي العائدة | حول معرض "يا حوت لا توكل قمرنا

"اسم الجدّة | عن العمل الفوتوغرافي "مراية تيتا" لرندة شعث، من معرض "أهل البحر

متمردون بالمصادفة، سنوات لا ترحم" عن "العودة" غير المألوفة في المشهد الفلسطيني"

لما شتَّت الدنيا سمك

عودة" ليلية يقودها الحمام"

آثار حيَّة | على الطريق من النقب إلى كانبيرا

Edited by Anthony Downey & Lina Lazaar (Ibraaz Publishing, 2011)

Edited by Anthony Downey (jrp|ringier, 2015)

Critical reflections on Ibraaz publications

Publications كتابة هذا البحر 010 / 31 August 2017 تمت كتابة هذه النصوص بأعقاب قلنديا الدولي 2016 نسخة 'هذا البحر لي'، وفي إطار مساق 'الكتابة مع الصور' وهو مساق تجريبي بادر إليه برنامج الثقافة والفنون في مؤسسة عبد المحسن القطَّان وتم تنظيمه بشراكة المتحف الفلسطيني وجمعية الثقافة العربية، ورواق، ومركز...

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

Partner institutions

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

Acknowledgements

Installation Views

ARC.HIVE (2006–present): Adham Hafez

Curator's Essay: Aaron Cezar

Foreword: Anthony Downey

Exhibition Overview

Installation views

A roundtable discussion

Ahmet Öğüt in conversation with Basak Senova

Shezad Dawood in conversation with Sara Raza

Christine Tohme in conversation with Anthony Downey

Tom Bogaert in conversation with Anthony Downey

Shady El Noshokaty in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Chapter 1: Intensities

Hassan Khan in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Jasmina Metwaly in conversation with Angela Harutyunyan

Wafaa Bilal in conversation with Sara Raza

Ala Younis in conversation with Liane Al-Ghusain

Zeina Arida in conversation with Laura Allsop

Pascal Hachem in conversation with Nour K Sacranie

Ayah Bdeir in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Michael Rakowitz in conversation with Anthony Downey

Cynthia Zaven in conversation with Basak Senova

Simone Fattal in conversation with Mirene Arsanios

Mario Rizzi in conversation with Dorothea Schoene

Visualizing Palestine in conversation with Haig Aivazian

Hera Büyüktaşçıyan in conversation with Basak Senova

Marie-Monique Steckel in conversation with Fawz Kabra

Downloadable Exhibition Guide

Fractures: Children's Activity Book

Chapter 7: Fabric

Chapter 6: Writing

Chapter 5: Lines

Chapter 4: Measures

Chapter 3: Intervals

Chapter 2: Details

A Question: Jalal Toufic

Editor's Foreword: Anthony Downey

Preface: Jack Persekian

Introduction: Basak Senova

Online exhibition catalogue

A View from the City: Tina Sherwell

Acknowledgements

Magdi Mostafa: Wisdom Tower: from the series Sound Cells (Fridays)

Basma Alsharif: We Began by Measuring Distance

Joe Namy: space, breath, time

Samah Hijawi: Paradise Series

Jumana Emil Abboud: A Happy Ending, Part II

Anas Al-Shaikh: My land, 2

Visitations: When aurality loses site* by Rayya Badran

Soundscapes: Taking Apart the Arab City by Dr. Alexandra MacGilp

Curator's Introduction

Foreword: Anthony Downey

Exhibition Overview

Looking at Wafaa Bilal's Domestic Tension : Barrak Alzaid

Sulayman Al Bassam in conversation with Ala Younis

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

Performance documentation: Lin Yilin

Chic Point Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints: Sharif Waked

Bent Jbeil: Wael Shawky

Hair and Milk Bottle: Hassan Sharif

Two Gunshots Fired at the Installation Dialogue : Xiao Lu

Photographs With A Flag: Mohammed Kazem

I March In The Parade Of Liberty But As Long As I Love You I'm Not Free: Sharon Hayes

Variation on Discord and Divisions: Mona Hatoum

Crossing Surda (a record of going to and from work): Emily Jacir

Operation Atropos: Coco Fusco

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

A Tress of Hair: Doa Aly

Yazan Khalili and Lara Khaldi in conversation with Natasha Hoare

Rasha Salti and Kristine Khouri in conversation with Samah Hijawi

Magdi Mostafa in conversation with Clelia Coussonnet

Sohrab Kashani in conversation with Taus Makhacheva

Rasha Salti in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Programme / Schedule

Speaker Biographies + Synopses

Curatorial Narrative

Introduction

Online exhibition catalogue

Closing Remarks

Meriem Bennani in conversation with Myriam Ben Salah

Online Programme

Video documentation: Day 2

Video documentation: Day 1

Abdullah Al-Mutairi in conversation with Sarah Abu Abdallah

Mahmoud Khaled in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Slavs and Tatars in conversation with Franz Thalmair

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

Online exhibition catalogue

ismaël in conversation with Wafa Gabsi

Sussan Deyhim in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Adham Hafez in conversation with Suzy Halajian

Lara Khaldi in conversation with Ghalya Saadawi

Morehshin Allahyari in conversation with Hannah Gregory

Hassan Sharif in conversation with Nujoom Al Ghanem

Adelita Husni-Bey in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Online exhibition catalogue

Urok Shirhan in Conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Maya Zbib in conversation with Amal Khalaf

Navine G. Khan-Dossos in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Özgür Uçkan and Vasif Kortun in conversation with Basak Senova

Hrair Sarkissian in conversation with Raed Yassin

Yael Bartana in conversation with Clelia Coussonnet

Rabih Mroué in conversation with Anthony Downey

Stefano Rabolli Pansera in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Youmna Chlala in conversation with Fawz Kabra

Hera Büyüktaşçıyan in conversation with Basak Senova

Sumesh Sharma in conversation with Amanprit Sandhu

Aikaterini Gegisian in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Anthony Downey and Beatrix Ruf in conversation with Slavs and Tatars

Sheyma Buali in conversation with Turi Munthe and Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi

Leeza Ahmady in conversation with Taus Makhacheva

Jonas Staal in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Vangelis Vlahos in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

November Paynter and Didem Pekün in conversation with Basak Senova

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

Ahd in conversation with Sheyma Buali

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

Raed Yassin in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

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

Fulya Erdemci in conversation with Basak Senova

Larissa Sansour in conversation with Sheyma Buali

Suha Shoman in conversation with Amin Alsaden

Foundland in conversation with Nat Muller

Hicham Khalidi in conversation with Daniella Rose King

WHW in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Uriel Orlow in conversation with Omar Kholeif

Hajra Waheed in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

A View from Afar: Stephanie Bailey

Lucien Samaha in conversation with Walid Raad, Part II

Tarek Abou El Fetouh in conversation with Stephanie Bailey

Leung Chi Wo in conversation with Robin Peckham

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

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

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

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

Nile Sunset Annex: Plotting in Egypt: Art People

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

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Sharjah Art Foundation, 17-19 March 2012

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Coline Milliard

Nour K Sacranie

Charlotte Bank

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Rachida Triki

The Cairo Seminar in Alexandria, dOCUMENTA (13)

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Malu Halasa

Two Exhibitions in Paris

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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

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New initiative fosters connections between the Middle East and the western world

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The second meeting of Maghreb des Arts

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A Report on Future City

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09–11 May, Museé National du Bardo, Tunis

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Erriadh is the Home of the ‘Street’

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Edge of Arabia Launches Culturunners

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Parviz Tanavoli’s Retrospective at the Davis Museum

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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...

Online exhibition catalogue

Online exhibition catalogue

Almagul Menlibayeva in conversation with Basak Senova

Gregory Sholette at Home Workspace Program

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On the 2016 Global Art Forum ‘The Future Was’

The 2016 March Meeting

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

At the Salzburger Kunstverein

Shuruq Harb: On Agency

Burak Arikan & Başak Şenova: Network Data

Hans Ulrich Obrist: in conversation with Omar Kholeif

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

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

Aaron Cezar, Delfina Foundation

Katia Kameli: Untitled (2011)

Christodoulos Panayiotou

Kazın Ayağı : (Actually, that's not the case )

Jim Quilty

Heba Y. Amin

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

Basir Mahmood

Mithkal Alzghair

Council presents: The Against Nature Journal

Ibraaz

Edited by Anthony Downey (IB Tauris, 2014)

Edited by Anthony Downey (IB Tauris, 2015)

Edited by Anthony Downey (Walther König Verlag, 2017)

Toleen Touq in conversation with Reema Salha Fadda

Edited by Anthony Downey (Sternberg Press, 2016)

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On Navigating Without a Compass

Notes on Geo-cultural Exhibitions

Stephanie Bailey

Artists Intervening in Lebanese Dailies

Lizzy Collier

Yazan Ashqar

On Qalandiya International 2016 in Ramallah

The Egyptian Surrealists (1938–1965)

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

Katia Kameli at the Mosaic Rooms

Exhibitions and Other Representations in 25 Years at Witte de With

Lara Baladi

Walking Cabbages and Watermelons

The 9th Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art

Ibraaz 5th Year Anniversary Editorial

Participatory Art in the Middle East

On Assumption and Authority

Forests, Freaks and Performativity

Barrak Alzaid

On Walking and Crawling

Earshot by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Portikus, Frankfurt

KVS Theater in Brussels

Choreographing Spaces of Gesticulation

Rana Hamadeh at The Showroom, London

Samah Hijawi

The Performance of Death in a Post-9/11 World

An Alternative Genealogy of Musique Concrète

The performative in the work of Hassan Khan

Notes on Maverickism as Genealogy and Genealogy as Approach

At the 41st Aeschylia Festival

Jumana Manna at Chisenhale Gallery, London

Interventions as Performative Gestures For Political Engagement in Jordan

Narratives and Ghosts from the International Art Exhibition for Palestine, 1978, at MACBA

A Curatorial Take on the Global South

Notes on a Giant Implosion

On Bouchra Khalili’s Cartographies

Nikos Papastergiadis and Gerardo Mosquera

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

A Provocation to the Question

A Recourse to the Past

Re-Thinking Cultural Development in Palestine

Art and Culture Beyond Institutions in Amman

Global Art Forum 8 at Katara Art Center

33rpm and a Few Seconds by Rabih Mroué and Lina Saneh

Imagining the Future, Assembling the Past

Arts Infrastructures and Institutions in Libya Post-Dictatorship

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

Or, Severing History From the Person

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

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

The Sharjah Art Foundation's 2014 March Meeting

HIWAR | Conversations in Amman

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

Almagul Menlibayeva

Abdullah Al-Mutairi

Sarah Abu Abdallah

Malak Helmy and Sophia Al Maria

Oreet Ashery

(The Differences Between The Parts Are The Subject of The Composition)

Eric Baudelaire

Santiago Mostyn

Taus Makhacheva

Malak Helmy

Yogesh Barve & Clark House Initiative

Nikolaj Larsen

Simohammed Fettaka & Basak Senova

Basma Alsharif

Mounira Al Solh

Hera Büyüktaşçıyan

Rosana Palazyan

Ariel Hassan

Youmna Chlala

Meriç Algün Ringborg

Uriel Orlow

Leung Chi Wo

Aikaterini Gegisian

Campus in Camps and Grupo Contrafilé

Shezad Dawood

Mohamed Fariji

Isak Berbic

Caline Aoun

Mohamed Abdelkarim

Mahmoud Khaled

Azin Feizabadi

Monira Al Qadiri

Iman Issa

Jasmina Metwaly

Thoughts on Art and Art Discourse

Medrar .TV

Adelita Husni-Bey

Wafaa Bilal at Maraya Art Park, Sharjah

Elif Öner and Vincent Rozenberg

Setareh Shahbazi

Notes from three spaces in which the law resounds

An online archive by Lucien Samaha

A project by Ali Cherri

A project by Jumana Manna and Sille Storihle

A project by Maha Maamoun

A project by Katia Kameli

The Circus (2)

A Story of an Exhibition

On the Rooftop

A Radio Series on the Poetics and Politics of Language

The Part about the Bandits Pt.2

Basak Senova on Zeren Göktan's Counter (2013)

Hans Haacke

Sophia Al-Maria

Raed Yassin

Lasse Lau

Cynthia Zaven

Adelita Husni-Bey

A Project by Robin Kahn

A Video Game Mausoleum for Bashar al-Assad

Documenting the Backlash

A Project by Lara Baladi with an introduction by Dorothea Schoene

An Image of a Revolution

Elevator Advertisements

Mahmoud Khaled

Naira Antoun

Makan

Dream Homes and Community-building

Roy Samaha

Yousef Moscatello

A Story in Parts

A project by Tom Bogaert for Ibraaz

Continuing Traditions of Satire, Art and the Struggle for Freedom in Syria

A project by Yousef Moscatello

A project by Fayçal Baghriche

A Project by Anahita Razmi

Transition, a photographic series by Myriam Abdelaziz

Two Projects by Sinisa Vlajkovic

Seher Shah's Recent Drawings

Isak Berbic

A Project by Saba Innab

A Project by Dictaphone Group

A Mother's Tongue, On Ahmad Ghossein's film My Father is Still a Communist

A Libyan Diary (Part III) - December 2011

A Libyan Diary (Part II) - November 2011

Mustapha Benfodil

Lina Khatib

Khaled Hafez

Nikolaj Larsen

A Libyan Diary (Part I) - October 2011

Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Marwa Arsanios

Batroun Projects

On Presidents & Superheroes

Dalia Khamissy

Francesco Jodice

Cecilia Andersson

Projects 'Graphic Witness' at Drawing Room, London 010 / 16 June 2017 When images of conflict and protest can be so easily captured on mobile devices, why translate them into graphic representations? How does the translation into graphic form change the act of witnessing, fabricate commentaries on instances of injustice,...

Mahmoud Bakhshi

A project by Benji Boyadgian

Shadi Habib Allah

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

Zamir Suleymanov

The Society of False Witnesses

Basma Alsharif

Morehshin Allahyari

Kamal Aljafari

Navine G. Khan-Dossos

Setareh Shahbazi

Amira Hanafi

On Silence and Noise in Times of Crisis

Tahrir Archives

Dena Al-Adeeb

Ahmed Badry

Maya Chami

Tom Bogaert

Written by Mayssa Fattouh

Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind

Zoukak Theatre Company

Sohrab Kashani

Meriem Bennani

Yazan Khalili Lara Khaldi

An Online Performance

Seth Ayyaz

Burak Delier

Urok Shirhan

Adham Faramawy

Hassan Khan

Hasan Hujairi

Joe Namy

Helene Kazan

Samah Hijawi

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

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

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

Farah Makni Hendaoui

Contemporary Artistic Practice in Iran at a Revolutionary Moment

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

Amy Charlesworth

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

Shifting the Geographies of Sensing, Believing and Knowing

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

Sharjah Biennial 11 – Re:emerge, Towards a New Cultural Cartography

Atfal Ahdath at Running Horse Contemporary

Mario Rizzi’s Al Intithar (The Waiting)

Artistic Practices, Collective Action and Civil Society in Tunisia

What has Changed in Tunisia since Spring 2011

A New Communal Model

Jens Maier-Rothe