Originally launched as part of the 54th Venice Bienniale in June 2011, and in conjunction with its first publication The Future of a Promise, Ibraaz has since expanded its remit to include Interviews and Projects, alongside its Essays and Platform sections.

For Platform 002, we posed the relatively open question:

WHAT RELATIONSHIP DOES VISUAL CULTURE HAVE TO THE WORLD WE LIVE IN?

We are pleased to have received responses, in text, image and video form, from Raafat Ishak, Antonia Carver, Taysir Batniji, Adalet R. Garmiany, Anahita Razmi, Bérénice Saliou, Driss Ouadahi, Faten Rouissi, Fayçal Baghriche, Giuseppe Moscatello, Hassan Darsi, and Ibrahim Farghali, among others.

L-R: Newsha Tavakolian, photograph, 2011; Hassan Darsi, Or d'Afrique, 2008; Faten Rouissi, photograph, 2011; All images courtesy of the artists.

PROJECTS & INTERVIEWS

Our new Projects section includes a sound piece by Seth Ayyaz, the second installment of Marwa Arsanios’ investigation into the films of Christian Ghazzi, a work by Wendelien van Oldenborgh, first seen in Venice and reworked here for Ibraaz, a slide-show of images by Lina Khatib that charts the downfall of dictators throughout the region, a video by Khaled Hafez (which responds to the civil turmoil in Egypt during its revolution), and a work looking at migration and displacement by Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen.

Platform 002 will also include interviews with Reza Aramesh, Ismaïl Bahri, Ahmet Ögüt, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Newsha Tavakolian, and Ahmed Alsoudani.

We are also proud to publish a diary by the Libyan artist and ceramicist Hadia Gana that we have been working on since May 2011. The diary, and accompanying images, covers the period of conflict in Libya from March this year up to the recent death of Muammar Gaddafi. It offers a unique perspective into the unrest there whilst charting the day-to-day hopes of the Libyan people and the legacy of a murderous regime. The diary will be regularly updated over the coming year and will focus on the role that culture will play in a post-conflict environment.

Hadia Gana, stills from animations , 2011. Courtesy of the artist.

ESSAYS

Following on from the success of our Essays section in Platform 001, we are also pleased to publish an essay on space, tourism and ideology by Ahmad Hosni, Yazan Khalili’s thoughts on the Picasso painting that was exhibited in Palestine in the summer, Mirene Arsanios on cultural magazines in Lebanon, a new poem by Mustapha Benfodil, and Yazid Anani’s report on ‘Designing Civic Encounter’, a four-day event held in Ramallah in July 2011.

NEWS

In other news, Ibraaz will be present at FIAC, Algeria, in December 2011, and the Art and Patronage Summit to be held at the British Museum in January 2012. A number of our Platform essays – Anthony Downey’s ‘Beyond the Former Middle East’ and Joe Khalil’s ‘Understanding the Threat to Arab Youth Uprisings’ – have been republished in Broadsheet, vol.40, no.3.

An essay on Ibraaz will appear in Spear’s Middle East and a recent interview with our editor can be found in the Art Dubai Journal.

Correction: In our first newsletter, Shady El Noshokaty was incorrectly identified as Executive Curator of Ahmed Basiony's Thirty Days of Running in the Place, Egyptian Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale. El Noshokaty was in fact, the Executive of the project, and Aida Eltorie was the Curator. This was corrected on-line soon thereafter but we hope it did not mislead our readers.

Ibraaz Platform 003 will be launched in April 2012 and news of our October 2012 conference will be posted in the New Year.