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Ibraaz Reader 009/06

Ibraaz

009_06 / 23 December 2015

In the first of our December Readers, Ibraaz offers a selection of the most viewed essays, interviews, and projects of Platform 009, which explores the genealogies of performance art across North Africa and the Middle East.

Contributors to Platform 009 so far have included: Reza Aramesh, Doa Aly, Nujoom Al Ghanem, Marwa Arsanios, Wafaa Bilal, Fari Bradley, Fayçal Baghriche, Eric Baudelaire, Tania El Khoury, Adham Faramawy, Samah Hijawi, Hasan Hujairi, Helene Kazan, Yazan Khalili and Lara Khaldi, Hassan Khan, Todd Reisz, Sondos Shabayek, Hassan Sharif, Urok Shirhan, and Stephen Sheehi.

We also present reports and reviews from New York, Tunis, Beirut, and Athens, while in Channel, we feature documentation of Corbeaux, a performance by Bouchra Ouizguen filmed during Home Works 7.

Ibraaz Platform 009: Performance

Anthony Downey

In his editorial to Platform 009, Ibraaz Editor-in-Chief Anthony Downey introduces the main Platform question: 'What are the genealogies of performance art in North Africa and the Middle East?'

Essays


Bouchra Ouizguen	Being ‘Inappropriate’
Nahrain Al-Mousawi	Sondos Shabayek
Nahrain Al-Mousawi writes about Bouchra Ouizguen, the Moroccan-born artist whose work falls somewhere between dance and socially-oriented performance art.	Sondos Shabayek discusses issues of censorship that face the BuSsy Project: a collaborative performing arts initiative in Egypt.


I Once Fell in Love with an Audience Member	The Image(s) Between Us
Tania El Khoury	Doa Aly
Tania El Khoury considers performance through the lens of her own practice as a live artist and as a member of Dictaphone Group, a live events project El Khoury started with Abir Saksouk.	Using Jean Baudrilliard's The Spirit of Terrorism as a point of departure, Doa Aly examines the image of death and the 'online performances' of contemporary terrorist groups, notably ISIS.

Interviews

Performative Resonances

Hiwa K in conversation with Anthony Downey and Amal Khalaf

In this far ranging conversation between the artist, Anthony Downey and Amal Khalaf, Hiwa reflects upon his most recent work The Bell (2007–2015) and previous performances.

The Great Journey

Lidia Al-Qattan in conversation with Monira Al Qadiri

Artist Monira Al Qadiri interviews Lidia Al-Qattan about a life project that began in 1966, when Al-Qattan started to cover her entire house in mirror mosaics.

Place, Space and Purpose

Lina Majdalanie in conversation with Göksu Kanak

In this interview, Lina Majdalanie (previously known as Lina Saneh) challenges the concepts of 'East' and 'West' as dichotomies around which various elements of performance are situated.

Theatre of the Present

Rabih Mroué in conversation with Göksu Kunak

How does theatre enact the compression of time, while mediating a kind of immediacy not found, specifically, in film or video works? Rabih Mroué addresses this and other points.

Doing Performance

Hassan Sharif in conversation with Nujoom Al Ghanem

In this interview, filmmaker Nujoom Al Ghanem speaks with Hassan Sharif about the question of performance art and its histories from the perspective of the Gulf.

A Letter’s Discourse

Yazan Khalili and Lara Khaldi in conversation with Natasha Hoare

Natasha Hoare speaks to artist Yazan Khalili and curator Lara Khaldi about their collaborative practice: performance lectures that draw together image, text, archive, film and sound through the epistolatory form.

Projects


5UNTHA	Engineering Shelter
Abdullah Al-Mutairi	Helene Kazan
5UNTHA is a collection of images taken from the visual correspondence of a WhatsApp group. It considers the tangible isolation liminal friends feel when collectively laughing at everyday occurrences in shared online spaces.	This online presentation showcases a work commissioned as part of Space Interrupted (2015), an exhibition at Fort Brockhurst in Portsmouth that invited artists to disrupt, engage, and reframe the industrial architecture of the site.


Juvenalia	Semitic Score
Malak Helmy and Sophia Al Maria	Oreet Ashery
'M, I was cleaning out some old boxes I left at my mother's... and look what tresor I found!'	Semitic Score was a performance that was initially conceived for 2Fik; a score of 12 instructions, each one-minute long, that went something like: 'walk, crawl, suck…'


Cola Revlon Mouthwash	Nosebleed
Adham Faramawy	Hasan Hujairi
Through Cola Revlon Mouthwash (2015), Adham Faramawy thinks about the strategies used for images to migrate across territories and how selfhood is performed and mediated in this process.	Hasan Hujairi presents 'nosebleed: structurally, an opera', an Ibraaz project commissioned as part of Platform 009, that is accompanied by an essay by the artist, On Constant Invention.

Reviews

The Great Hall Exhibition

Daniella Rose King

Daniella Rose King reviews Walead Beshty's participation in The Great Hall Exhibition, a series of shows organized by MA students from NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, New York City.

News

The Egyptian Surrealists in Global Perspective

Alexandra Stock

A report on a three-day symposium at the American University in Cairo, in which twenty-three presentations offered a range of uncovered histories of the Egyptian Surrealists.

Some other way, somewhere else...

Wafa Gabsi

Wafa Gabsi reports on Dream City, an artistic initiative that meets the challenge, she finds, of facing a fundamental question: how can artistic activities be used as a tool for social connection?

Real Edgy

Stephanie Bailey

Stephanie Bailey visits Home Works 7 in Beirut and the Athens Biennale, reporting on the discussions that emerged in both events, including one centred around the critique of the market's impact on cultural production.

Channel

Corbeaux

Bouchra Ouizguen

Watch an excerpt from Corbeaux, a performance staged by Bouchra Ouizguen at Home Works 7

In our next December Reader, Ibraaz will present a selection of most viewed content published as part of Platform 009 so far on Channel.

In January, we will resume publishing content responding to the 009 theme, the genealogies of performance art in North Africa and the Middle East. Confirmed contributors include: Sarah Abu Abdallah, Barrak Alzaid, Seth Ayyaz, Shiva Balaghi, David Birkin, Burak Delier, Coco Fusco, Shuruq Harb, Mandy Merzaban, Magdi Mostafa, Abdullah Mutairi, and Hrair Sarkissian.

In 2016, we will also announce the theme of Platform 010, which will launch in May 2016. Sign up to the Ibraaz monthly reader at this link to stay updated.

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Ibraaz Reader 009/06

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