Lamees Khoury: The Ultimate Observer
Rula Jiryis spoke with the Palestinian artist Lamees Khoury about belonging and identity, memory and intuition, and how form, voice, and movement appear in her artworks.
Palestinian art
Ayman Safiah: the Dimensions of Empty Space and the Question: What Comes Next?
Wisam Gibran offers a broad reading of the life work of the late Palestinian artist Ayman Safiah. He examines how the body becomes a site speaking the language of freedom, and dance disrupts all that is familiar with its courageous details; he delves into the issue of freedom, gauging the boundaries of the self and its collapse.
On the Corrupt in Art (a reading of Hannan Abu-Hussein's artworks)
The musician, artist, and poet Wisam Gibran suggests a socio-cultural reading of four works by the Palestinian artist Hannan Abu-Hussein's - Agina (Dough), Pouring the Oil, Bukjia (Bundle), In Between the Destruction of the Father - as representatives of inner worlds reflecting art's association with the cycle of life and death, movement and stillness, the sacred and the forbidden, the presence and the absence.
Boullata: Like a Fish Out of Water. Or, Art as a Visual Thesis
Palestinian visual artist Kamal Boullata (b. 1942, Jerusalem) departed this world on August 6, 2019, from his exile in Berlin at the age of seventy-seven. He leaves behind a formidable artistic legacy, which has made him stand out in the field of criticism and artistic production within the Palestinian and Arab art scene. In this article, Moroccan artist and poet Samir Salmi tries to present a comprehensive portrait of a multi-faceted artist, and reveals the strengths of his research, creative and critical work.
A Call to Preserve Memory Through a Future Gaze
How is Palestine represented in contemporary art, and how do Palestinian artists deal with the notions of memory and the past? Larissa Sansour raises in her work many questions concerning ideas of sanctity, homeland, and memory, in a manner that helps turning them into an illusion. In an analytical review and an in-depth critical gaze, scholar Housni Alkhateeb Shehada presents a broad picture of the place, the dialogue, the memory, and the conflict the figures are experiencing in the work recently presented by Sansour, in the Danish Pavilion, at the 58th Venice Biennale.
Gender and Senses: The Art of Anisa Ashkar
Anisa Ashkar's work uses the different senses to problematize the intersection of categories that compose together her multi-layered identity. Tal Dekel visits her recent solo show and writes about Ashkar's use of the whole sensorium to blend categories, destabilize and dismantle them.
Present Progressive: Speculations On Cultural Imagination In The Middle East
What do recent accounts of institutional cultural practice in the Middle East offer to further the understanding and the development of contemporary cultural production in the region, and what do they fail to address? Lama Suleiman reviews the latest volume in the ongoing Ibraaz publication series on visual culture in the Middle East and North Africa
Available in Audio
Afrofuturism and Arabfuturism: Reflections of a Present-day Diasporic Reader
Writing a review of a recent publication on Afrofuturism for Tohu Magazine has led Lama Suleiman to explore the still-nascent concept of Arabfuturism and its potential relevance to the discourse on Arab and Palestinian cultural production.
Conversation Piece #2 - Rabia Salfiti
Michel Nassar in conversation with Rabia Salfiti on travelling, meditation, propaganda and martyrdom
Conversation Piece #1 - Haitham (Charles) Haddad
Michel Nassar in conversation with Haitham (Charles) Haddad on his work process and his take on gender, fashion, religion and technology.