Platform for discussion 010
Where to Now? Shifting Regional Dynamics and Cultural Production in North Africa and the Middle East
Essays
-
-
Where to Now: Shifting Regional Dynamics and Cultural Production in North Africa and the Middle East1 August 2017
Platform 010 Editorial
Anthony Downey
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
What Representations?31 October 2016
Exhibitions and Other Representations in 25 Years at Witte de With
Nat Muller
-
-
-
Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age, Archiving as an Act of Resistance28 July 2016
Lara Baladi
-
Fahrelnissa Zeid in the Mega-Museum14 July 2016
Mega-museums and modern artists from the Middle East
Sarah-Neel Smith
-
-
-
-
Effective on the Ground and Invisible to the Global Art Market15 June 2016
Participatory Art in the Middle East
Pamela Karimi
-
Beware of the Image1 June 2016
APEAL's 'Museum in the Making' and Temporary. Art. Platform. present: The 2016 Ras Masqa Artists' Residency
Petra Serhal
-
-
Critique as Infrastructure6 May 2016
Organic Growth and the Rise of Visual Arts Organizations in the UAE
Elizabeth Derderian
-
-
-
The Jerusalem Show VII29 October 2014
Outside Looking In: Taking a Title and Running With It*
Stephanie Bailey
Interviews
-
Creating Intimacies: On the Spring Sessions Programme in Amman26 June 2017
Toleen Touq in conversation with Reema Salha Fadda
Reema Salha Fadda
-
On Building Nations15 June 2017
A two-part conversation with Szabolcs KissPál and Mahmoud Khaled
Edit András and Amro Ali
-
Unfolding the Structures of Sound8 May 2017
Cevdet Erek in conversation with Başak Şenova
Başak Şenova
-
-
-
Systems of Fragments31 March 2017
Hajra Waheed in conversation with Stephanie Bailey
Stephanie Bailey
-
Enunciation Rather Than Representation22 March 2017
Alya Sebti in conversation with Göksu Kunak
Göksu Kunak
-
-
-
Picturing the Homeland5 February 2017
Carole Alfarah in conversation with María Gómez López
María Gómez López
-
-
We Are Sick, But We Are Alive24 January 2017
Haig Aivazian in conversation with Rayya Badran
Rayya Badran
-
Reversing Power, Allowing Possibilities22 January 2017
Yael Bartana in conversation with Clelia Coussonnet
Clelia Coussonnet
-
-
The Making of a Collective29 November 2016
MADRASSA Collective in conversation with Antonia Alampi
Antonia Alampi
-
Politics in Practice26 November 2016
Younes Bouadi in conversation with Stephanie Bailey
Stephanie Bailey
-
Capturing Evanescence16 November 2016
Rifat Chadirji and Balkis Sharara in conversation with Amin Alsaden
Amin Alsaden
-
-
Speculations for Collective Transformations31 October 2016
Farah Saleh in conversation with Marianna Liosi
Marianna Liosi
-
Information Acts31 October 2016
Navine G. Khan-Dossos in conversation with Stephanie Bailey
Stephanie Bailey
-
-
-
Still (the) Barbarians28 July 2016
Koyo Kouoh in conversation with Stephanie Bailey
Stephanie Bailey
-
Shooting What is Missing21 July 2016
Hamza Halloubi in conversation with Natasha Hoare
Natasha Hoare
-
-
-
Art in the Time of the Anthropocene25 June 2016
Nora Razian, Nataša Petrešin Bachelez, and Angela Harutyunyan in conversation, with a contribution from Natasha Gasparian
Nora Razian and Nataša Petrešin Bachelez
-
-
-
The Time is Out of Joint6 May 2016
Tarek Abou El Fetouh in conversation with Stephanie Bailey
Stephanie Bailey
-
Hiding Out In My Own Place6 May 2016
Nida Sinnokrot in conversation with Natasha Hoare
Natasha Hoare
-
-
-
Projects
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The mold that we melt in
APEAL's 'Museum in the Making' and Temporary. Art. Platform. present: The 2016 Ras Masqa Artists' Residency
Myriam Boulos
-
Ghosts of the Mediterranean Sea
APEAL's 'Museum in the Making' and Temporary. Art. Platform. present: The 2016 Ras Masqa Artists' Residency
Youmna Geday
-
Maximum you can touch me
APEAL's 'Museum in the Making' and Temporary. Art. Platform. present: The 2016 Ras Masqa Artists' Residency
Ieva Saudargaitė
-
-
-
Responses
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What is a platform?
A platform is a space for speaking in public. It is an opportunity to express ideas and thoughts. It also suggests the formal declaration of a stance or position on any given subject.
Unique to Ibraaz is a 'platform', a question put to writers, thinkers and artists about an issue relevant to the MENA region. This platform is sent to respondents both within and beyond the MENA region and contributions will be archived every 12 months.