Place beyond borders
curated by Judith Wielander & Love Difference
3rd July 2009 – 7th January 2010
"Place beyond borders" is a visual and textual project consisting of a space of witness, analysis and in-depth examination of the subject of artistic practices applied in places of conflict in the Middle East.
Ziad Antar – Cote d’Azur Hotel, Jnah, built in 1973
Invited artists:
Tal Adler (Israel), Emad Ahmad – IdiomsFilm (Palestine), Ziad Antar (Lebanon), Yael Bar On, Ahmad Malki and Sakiko Sugawa (Israel, Palestine, Japan), Michael Blum (Israel / Austria), Yael Davids (Israel / Netherlands), Rene Gabri & Ayreen Anastas, (Iran / Armenia / Palestine / Usa), Majd Abdel Hamid (Palestine), Eytan Heller (Israel), Mazen Kerbaj (Lebanon), Walid Maw’ed (Palestine), Alessandro Petti & Sandi Hilal (Italy / Palestine), Rasha Salti (Lebanon), Layan Shawabkeh (Palestine), Mohamed Soueid (Lebanon), Oraib Toukan (Jordan), Wafaa Yasin (Palestine).
Concept
Cittadellarte select and present works by artists and activators in a way that will both document and recontextualize the works. place beyond borders will thereby pose a series of open questions, all the while stimulating inquiry and opening up unexpected perspectives.
It will be a heterotopic place imagined and created beyond the real boundaries of a complex territorial and political conflict and, at the same time, a place of participation and discussion: an “agonistic public sphere”.
Artists/activators selected for their demonstrated capacity for creative critical analysis in and of the Middle Eastern context, will present video and/or poster works with interviews, statements and images that address the theme of the boundary, understood not only as a geographic and political division, but above all as a mental barrier to dialogue and to the acknowledgment of others.
In "place beyond borders" it’s possible, furthermore, to study the themes dealt with through a selection of 30 books suggested by the artists/activators involved in the project.
During the summer months "place beyond borders" becomes a learning laboratory, a visual and textual “living library”, in conjunction with the educational programs of Unidee–University of Ideas, international artist’s residency. The projects and the courses of action they propose will be closely studied, sparking a debate on the role of the artist as activator of processes capable of transforming reality.
On July 6th and 7th Cittadellarte has presented a workshop in the within of the project with Rene Gabri, Ayreen Anastas and Alessandro Petti.
Biography:
1988, born in Damascus, Syria. Lives in Ramallah, Palestine Education: currently doing a BA in Contemporary Fine Arts at the International Art Academy/ Palestine. Second year student.
Group Exhibitions: 2008 “monoculture and other realities”, third Guangzhou Triennial, China. 2007 SHUROUQ declares: DAWLET EL-SIT ANEESEH, BirZiet,Palestine. 2007 Spring Encounter, International Academy of Art Palestine.
Awards: Young Artist Award, the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.
Work in the exhibition:
‘Untitled’ (poster, 2008)
‘Human languages are defined by the sounds, word, and grammatical constructions that slowly accumulate in a given community over centuries. These cultural materials do not accumulate randomly but rather enter into systematic relationships with one another, as well as with the human beings who serve as their organic support’
from "A thousand years of nonlinear history", Manuel De Landa.
Group Exhibitions: 2008 “monoculture and other realities”, third Guangzhou Triennial, China. 2007 SHUROUQ declares: DAWLET EL-SIT ANEESEH, BirZiet,Palestine. 2007 Spring Encounter, International Academy of Art Palestine.
Awards: Young Artist Award, the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.
Work in the exhibition:
‘Untitled’ (poster, 2008)
‘Human languages are defined by the sounds, word, and grammatical constructions that slowly accumulate in a given community over centuries. These cultural materials do not accumulate randomly but rather enter into systematic relationships with one another, as well as with the human beings who serve as their organic support’
from "A thousand years of nonlinear history", Manuel De Landa.
Biography:
In June 2004, eight young Palestinian filmmakers have come together with the objective of developing and enriching the Palestinian film industry by creating alternative and artistic films, Idioms film Ltd. Was founded and since then has been acting as a platform to consolidate diverse dexterities of enthusiastic artist working in a number of different field.
Today idioms film has a spectrum of more the 15 freelance artists. This is how idioms film has become a single source for a generous variety of proposals and an extensive range of service in audio-visual production. These service include professional production teams along with the necessary equipment (art director, executive producer, director of photography, sound engineer editor, music editor, color corrector). The teams cover all stages of production starting from research to production up to postproduction. Idioms film also offers copyrighted music, composed and performed by in-house composers and musicians. Film translation and subtitling is provided for English, French, Spanish Portuguese, German, Hebrew and Arabic. Energized with experiences of creative masterminds from different Arabic and European countries, the team of idioms film develops non-fictional films (documentaries, reportages, and features) commercial and educational films as well as feature film for TV and cinema. For this purpose idioms film opened its own casting office that’s give access to 250 listed Palestinian actors.
Work in the exhibition:
Once Upon Time in Qalqeliah (documentary film)
The Camera observes 4 sides, it follows a Palestinian Security officer Abu Abdallah, Sheran, the Guard at the main gate of the wall, Abu Azzam, the Palestinian farmer and Qalqeliah at night. The scenes show plenty of contradictions in this area.
In June 2004, eight young Palestinian filmmakers have come together with the objective of developing and enriching the Palestinian film industry by creating alternative and artistic films, Idioms film Ltd. Was founded and since then has been acting as a platform to consolidate diverse dexterities of enthusiastic artist working in a number of different field.
Today idioms film has a spectrum of more the 15 freelance artists. This is how idioms film has become a single source for a generous variety of proposals and an extensive range of service in audio-visual production. These service include professional production teams along with the necessary equipment (art director, executive producer, director of photography, sound engineer editor, music editor, color corrector). The teams cover all stages of production starting from research to production up to postproduction. Idioms film also offers copyrighted music, composed and performed by in-house composers and musicians. Film translation and subtitling is provided for English, French, Spanish Portuguese, German, Hebrew and Arabic. Energized with experiences of creative masterminds from different Arabic and European countries, the team of idioms film develops non-fictional films (documentaries, reportages, and features) commercial and educational films as well as feature film for TV and cinema. For this purpose idioms film opened its own casting office that’s give access to 250 listed Palestinian actors.
Work in the exhibition:
Once Upon Time in Qalqeliah (documentary film)
The Camera observes 4 sides, it follows a Palestinian Security officer Abu Abdallah, Sheran, the Guard at the main gate of the wall, Abu Azzam, the Palestinian farmer and Qalqeliah at night. The scenes show plenty of contradictions in this area.
Biography:
I was born in the Galilean village of Tamra in 1980, Palestine. I graduated in 2005 with distinction from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. I participated in a student exchange program in Stuttgart, Germany, at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, where I produced an outdoor installation “Christmas in Palestine”, with a tree and stones.
I lived and worked in Jerusalem, constantly seeking to develop my talent and to build my career as an artist. I participated twice in A.M. Qattan’s Annual Young Artist of the Year Award. In 2006 I received an honourable mention for my works, and in 2008, I won second prize. Between the years 2006 and 2008, I awarded international art residencies in Italy, France, Turkey, and Germany. Currently I'm pursuing a scholarship for master’s degree in fine arts, specialising in social practice, at the California College of Arts in San Francisco, USA. I've been nominated in Palestinian magazine as "Artist Of The Month" for May 2009. I worked as an instructor of workshop for children and women in crises in art galleries in Palestine. (W.Y.)
Work in the exhibition:
Stomach Pain V (video 46 min. and poster)
The inside, the outside
The hidden, the shown
The protection from publicity…
Settled deeply in my memories, my behavior and my self portrait…
I see it in any father and daughter walking down the street…
I have stomach pain… mom
I worked in a shelter for girls who suffered from domestic violence. The girls age range between 12-18 years old. Most of the girls comes from poor crouded neighborhoods of jerusalem. They lived under difficult impossible conditions. they needed to sleep all together with parents and sisters and brothers in the same room, in a large family. In result it's hard to notice what a little girl is going through, specially if she lives in a concervative society like the arabic society, where people don't talk about what is real going at home between the family members.
The title "Stomach pain": it has been defined by the girls that they use to give hints to some of their family members, in this case will be the mother, like the little girl that i worked with. She tried to make her mom notice what she is going through by saying "mom, I have stomach pain", instead of saying “mom please save me from dad, he is doing bad things to me.” (W.Y.)
I was born in the Galilean village of Tamra in 1980, Palestine. I graduated in 2005 with distinction from Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. I participated in a student exchange program in Stuttgart, Germany, at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, where I produced an outdoor installation “Christmas in Palestine”, with a tree and stones.
I lived and worked in Jerusalem, constantly seeking to develop my talent and to build my career as an artist. I participated twice in A.M. Qattan’s Annual Young Artist of the Year Award. In 2006 I received an honourable mention for my works, and in 2008, I won second prize. Between the years 2006 and 2008, I awarded international art residencies in Italy, France, Turkey, and Germany. Currently I'm pursuing a scholarship for master’s degree in fine arts, specialising in social practice, at the California College of Arts in San Francisco, USA. I've been nominated in Palestinian magazine as "Artist Of The Month" for May 2009. I worked as an instructor of workshop for children and women in crises in art galleries in Palestine. (W.Y.)
Work in the exhibition:
Stomach Pain V (video 46 min. and poster)
The inside, the outside
The hidden, the shown
The protection from publicity…
Settled deeply in my memories, my behavior and my self portrait…
I see it in any father and daughter walking down the street…
I have stomach pain… mom
I worked in a shelter for girls who suffered from domestic violence. The girls age range between 12-18 years old. Most of the girls comes from poor crouded neighborhoods of jerusalem. They lived under difficult impossible conditions. they needed to sleep all together with parents and sisters and brothers in the same room, in a large family. In result it's hard to notice what a little girl is going through, specially if she lives in a concervative society like the arabic society, where people don't talk about what is real going at home between the family members.
The title "Stomach pain": it has been defined by the girls that they use to give hints to some of their family members, in this case will be the mother, like the little girl that i worked with. She tried to make her mom notice what she is going through by saying "mom, I have stomach pain", instead of saying “mom please save me from dad, he is doing bad things to me.” (W.Y.)
Biography:
Oraib Toukan works across media in photography, video, and installation, often pushing public interventions in to her practice.
Oraib has received various fellowships, awards and international residencies for her practices.
Reviews of her work include Art Forum, ArtAsia, Pacific and Bidoun. Guest speaker at The Tate, NYU/ArtEast, MassArt, University of Luzern, among others. She is currently based in New York City.
Works in the exhibition:
Can u see me: Monologues in Air (A4 prints, 2007)
An intervention on rooftops at the peripheral overlap of three hills in downtown Amman. The work is a series of seven very large orange arrows running in conflicting directions, and made of the same material that is both used for insulating/building rooftops and for marking truce targets in time of war.
The Middle East Auction (screensaver, 2008)
A project leading out from working with an economist to calculate a real market value for a 99- year leasehold for the purchase of whole territories in the Middle East. The nations under auction use Ralf Peters’ definition of the Middle East in his book ‘The New Middle East’. Auction catalogues were produced as well as well as advertising inserts and public billboards.
Oraib Toukan works across media in photography, video, and installation, often pushing public interventions in to her practice.
Oraib has received various fellowships, awards and international residencies for her practices.
Reviews of her work include Art Forum, ArtAsia, Pacific and Bidoun. Guest speaker at The Tate, NYU/ArtEast, MassArt, University of Luzern, among others. She is currently based in New York City.
Works in the exhibition:
Can u see me: Monologues in Air (A4 prints, 2007)
An intervention on rooftops at the peripheral overlap of three hills in downtown Amman. The work is a series of seven very large orange arrows running in conflicting directions, and made of the same material that is both used for insulating/building rooftops and for marking truce targets in time of war.
The Middle East Auction (screensaver, 2008)
A project leading out from working with an economist to calculate a real market value for a 99- year leasehold for the purchase of whole territories in the Middle East. The nations under auction use Ralf Peters’ definition of the Middle East in his book ‘The New Middle East’. Auction catalogues were produced as well as well as advertising inserts and public billboards.
Biography:
1986, born in Jerusalem/Palestine.
Layan Shawabkeh lives, studies and works in Ramallah. Currently doing BA degree in contemproray visual art at the International Academy of Art-Palestine. Winner of the ”Young Artist of the year 2008” award organized by A. M. Qattan Foundation.
1986, born in Jerusalem/Palestine.
Layan Shawabkeh lives, studies and works in Ramallah. Currently doing BA degree in contemproray visual art at the International Academy of Art-Palestine. Winner of the ”Young Artist of the year 2008” award organized by A. M. Qattan Foundation.
Work in the exhibition:
The Ladder (poster, 2008)
"An attempt to re-define the local space by writing myself in its public visual language." (L.S.)
The Ladder (poster, 2008)
"An attempt to re-define the local space by writing myself in its public visual language." (L.S.)
Biography:
Born in 1959, Beirut, Lebanon, Mohamed Soueid began his academic life very distant from the world of film and video. In 1977, he enrolled to study Chemistry at the Lebanese University. Yet, his passion for films took the best out of him. Where immediately after he completed his studies he began a career in film criticism where he wrote weekly columns for Al-Safir daily newspaper, as well as for the weekly cultural supplement (Al-Mulhak) of An-Nahar daily newspaper.While continuing with his career in film criticism, he worked as an assistant director for a number of Lebanese filmmakers. After he directed his first film “Absence” in 1990, Mohamed Soueid went on to execute his own documentaries and TV works, where he was notably known by his autobiographical trilogy full-length documentaries “Tango of Yearning” (1998), “Nightfall” (2000) and “Civil War” (2002). His “Tango of Yearning” won the Best Documentary Director Prize at Beirut International Film Festival in Beirut 2000.Apart from his documentary independent works, Mohamed Soueid directed the TV mini series drama “Women in Love”, a free remake of a classical work produced by Télé Liban in the 70s and then directed by Samir Nasri. Carmen Lobbos, Julia Kassar and Carole Abboud were among the leading cast of Soueid’s remake.Since 2002, Mohamed Soueid has been assigned as senior producer for “O3 Productions”, the documentary sister company of the MBC satellite TV Group.In addition to his film and TV work, Mohamed Soueid published two books on Lebanese cinema and old movie theatres: “Postponed Cinema – The Lebanese Civil War Films” (published by “Arab Research Foundation”, Beirut, 1986) and “ Ya Fouadi – A Chronicle of Beirut’s Late Movie Theatres” (published by “Dar An-Nahar”, Beirut, 1996).In 2004, his first novel “Cabaret Souad” was released by the Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Adab; and he is currently shooting his new feature length documentary “Written on the Dust”.
Work in the exhibition:
Cabaret Souad is Mohamad Soueid’s first literary fiction, where the elements and motifs that articulate his cinema find a transliteration in literature. His fascination with the silver screen, his interweaving of autobiographical invention and official history (the important and mundane) are cast in a story set to have been written by a character, Wahid Sadeq, and narrated by a second character, Iyyad Ayyoub, in the first person. While the identity of two men is often blurred, Wahid is described as a writer of certain standing who publishes under the pen name Maytham Hosni, who has handed over a script by his trusting friend, Iyyad, titled Malek Es-Sex, Arabic for The King of Sex, that details acts of war-crimes and high-treason during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). ‘Malek Es-Sex’, The King of Sex is a sarcastic twist on the image of virility, male power and heroism, commonplace to Lebanese slang; it is usually followed with ‘wel cornflex’ (and cornflakes) to close the rhyme with ‘Es-Sex’. It refers, endearingly, to a man’s failed or dismal amorous exploits. In four long chapters, with jump cuts, movements forward and flights into the past, the reader is presented with a chronicle of a man who was a combatant during the civil war, his childhood in a working class neighborhood of west Beirut, a portrait of his father and to a lesser extent his family, vignettes into the social history of Beirut before and during the war. Whether Iyyad, Maytham, Wahid or Soueid himself, the narrative of the civil war is that of men broken from violence, living in a city that comes undone before their eyes as the cruelty of war grabs hold. Broken too was Souad Hosni, the darling ‘Cinderella’ of Egyptian cinema who died mysteriously and miserably in London, her body thrust from a high-storey balcony. She is at once, incarnate and an incarnation, the mainstream media narratives - projections and speculations - recounting her tragic passing are interlaced with local Beiruti stories and lore. In ‘Cabaret Souad’ seemingly unrelated realities and stories, from the recent past and fragmented present of Beirut and its non-descript neighborhoods, as well as the recent past of Egyptian cinema and its evocative impact on the popular imaginary, are staged into a cogent being in the world, effortlessly. At the end of the novel, the epilogue reveals that Maytham Hosni is a sleazy opportunist, plagiarizer, war criminal, money-launderer and pimp, who has left Beirut under shady circumstances and opened a nightclub in post-Saddam Baghdad he calls Cabaret Souad, in homage to the Egyptian silver screen darling. His parting act with Beirut was to placard the city with an image of the Cinderella with the enigmatic promise: ‘See you on the banks of the Tigris.
download an excerpt from Cabaret Souad (English)
Born in 1959, Beirut, Lebanon, Mohamed Soueid began his academic life very distant from the world of film and video. In 1977, he enrolled to study Chemistry at the Lebanese University. Yet, his passion for films took the best out of him. Where immediately after he completed his studies he began a career in film criticism where he wrote weekly columns for Al-Safir daily newspaper, as well as for the weekly cultural supplement (Al-Mulhak) of An-Nahar daily newspaper.While continuing with his career in film criticism, he worked as an assistant director for a number of Lebanese filmmakers. After he directed his first film “Absence” in 1990, Mohamed Soueid went on to execute his own documentaries and TV works, where he was notably known by his autobiographical trilogy full-length documentaries “Tango of Yearning” (1998), “Nightfall” (2000) and “Civil War” (2002). His “Tango of Yearning” won the Best Documentary Director Prize at Beirut International Film Festival in Beirut 2000.Apart from his documentary independent works, Mohamed Soueid directed the TV mini series drama “Women in Love”, a free remake of a classical work produced by Télé Liban in the 70s and then directed by Samir Nasri. Carmen Lobbos, Julia Kassar and Carole Abboud were among the leading cast of Soueid’s remake.Since 2002, Mohamed Soueid has been assigned as senior producer for “O3 Productions”, the documentary sister company of the MBC satellite TV Group.In addition to his film and TV work, Mohamed Soueid published two books on Lebanese cinema and old movie theatres: “Postponed Cinema – The Lebanese Civil War Films” (published by “Arab Research Foundation”, Beirut, 1986) and “ Ya Fouadi – A Chronicle of Beirut’s Late Movie Theatres” (published by “Dar An-Nahar”, Beirut, 1996).In 2004, his first novel “Cabaret Souad” was released by the Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Adab; and he is currently shooting his new feature length documentary “Written on the Dust”.
Work in the exhibition:
Cabaret Souad is Mohamad Soueid’s first literary fiction, where the elements and motifs that articulate his cinema find a transliteration in literature. His fascination with the silver screen, his interweaving of autobiographical invention and official history (the important and mundane) are cast in a story set to have been written by a character, Wahid Sadeq, and narrated by a second character, Iyyad Ayyoub, in the first person. While the identity of two men is often blurred, Wahid is described as a writer of certain standing who publishes under the pen name Maytham Hosni, who has handed over a script by his trusting friend, Iyyad, titled Malek Es-Sex, Arabic for The King of Sex, that details acts of war-crimes and high-treason during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). ‘Malek Es-Sex’, The King of Sex is a sarcastic twist on the image of virility, male power and heroism, commonplace to Lebanese slang; it is usually followed with ‘wel cornflex’ (and cornflakes) to close the rhyme with ‘Es-Sex’. It refers, endearingly, to a man’s failed or dismal amorous exploits. In four long chapters, with jump cuts, movements forward and flights into the past, the reader is presented with a chronicle of a man who was a combatant during the civil war, his childhood in a working class neighborhood of west Beirut, a portrait of his father and to a lesser extent his family, vignettes into the social history of Beirut before and during the war. Whether Iyyad, Maytham, Wahid or Soueid himself, the narrative of the civil war is that of men broken from violence, living in a city that comes undone before their eyes as the cruelty of war grabs hold. Broken too was Souad Hosni, the darling ‘Cinderella’ of Egyptian cinema who died mysteriously and miserably in London, her body thrust from a high-storey balcony. She is at once, incarnate and an incarnation, the mainstream media narratives - projections and speculations - recounting her tragic passing are interlaced with local Beiruti stories and lore. In ‘Cabaret Souad’ seemingly unrelated realities and stories, from the recent past and fragmented present of Beirut and its non-descript neighborhoods, as well as the recent past of Egyptian cinema and its evocative impact on the popular imaginary, are staged into a cogent being in the world, effortlessly. At the end of the novel, the epilogue reveals that Maytham Hosni is a sleazy opportunist, plagiarizer, war criminal, money-launderer and pimp, who has left Beirut under shady circumstances and opened a nightclub in post-Saddam Baghdad he calls Cabaret Souad, in homage to the Egyptian silver screen darling. His parting act with Beirut was to placard the city with an image of the Cinderella with the enigmatic promise: ‘See you on the banks of the Tigris.
download an excerpt from Cabaret Souad (English)
Biography:
Rasha Salti is a free-lance writer and independent curator, working between Beirut and New York. She is also the creative director of the New York-based arts non-profit ArteEast.
Rasha Salti is a free-lance writer and independent curator, working between Beirut and New York. She is also the creative director of the New York-based arts non-profit ArteEast.
Works in the exhibition:
Beirut Bereft, Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict is a collaboration between photographer Ziad Antar and writer Rasha Salti at SB09, that includes the production and publication of a book, as well as an exhibition of photographs.
Synopsis:
To the image of its political, social and cultural scapes, Beirut’s urban landscape still bears markers, scars and vestiges of its seventeen-year long civil war, more than fifteen years after the cessation of violence. Peppered through the city’s fabric are buildings, unfinished, often in their bare concrete shell. Tucked between “functional” buildings they are cast out from attention and have slipped from visibility. Built in the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s, throughout the interrupted chapters of the war, they were used during the war by militia fighters as temporary ‘encampments’, rooms were furnished with basic materiel to accommodate for sleep and meals, higher floors and rooftops were used for sniping, facades and windows of lower floors were buttressed with sandbags. These unfinished buildings morphed into encampments and became strategic landmarks in the battles between militia groups seeking to expand their control. When the violence was halted and negotiations for the post-war accord negotiated, the fighters packed up and emptied the buildings. Their status as ‘landmarks’ was suddenly arrested, and they once again became the failed, unresolved projects imbricated within a bustling urban fabric. Today, these bare-faced concrete edifices, sometimes guarded by rusted fences, stand bereft, at once encasing sorrow, destitution and abandonment, surly evidence of failures, nagging reminders of what is systematically cast away from sight, representation and narrative.
Beirut Bereft, Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict is a collaboration between photographer Ziad Antar and writer Rasha Salti at SB09, that includes the production and publication of a book, as well as an exhibition of photographs.
Synopsis:
To the image of its political, social and cultural scapes, Beirut’s urban landscape still bears markers, scars and vestiges of its seventeen-year long civil war, more than fifteen years after the cessation of violence. Peppered through the city’s fabric are buildings, unfinished, often in their bare concrete shell. Tucked between “functional” buildings they are cast out from attention and have slipped from visibility. Built in the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s, throughout the interrupted chapters of the war, they were used during the war by militia fighters as temporary ‘encampments’, rooms were furnished with basic materiel to accommodate for sleep and meals, higher floors and rooftops were used for sniping, facades and windows of lower floors were buttressed with sandbags. These unfinished buildings morphed into encampments and became strategic landmarks in the battles between militia groups seeking to expand their control. When the violence was halted and negotiations for the post-war accord negotiated, the fighters packed up and emptied the buildings. Their status as ‘landmarks’ was suddenly arrested, and they once again became the failed, unresolved projects imbricated within a bustling urban fabric. Today, these bare-faced concrete edifices, sometimes guarded by rusted fences, stand bereft, at once encasing sorrow, destitution and abandonment, surly evidence of failures, nagging reminders of what is systematically cast away from sight, representation and narrative.
Biography:
Palestinian designer/artist born in Nazareth, Walid Maw'ed gratuated at the Institute of Fashion and Textile, Beit Sahour. Costume designer for movies such as “Paradise now”, he was awarded an A.M.Qattan Foundation grant to participate in UNIDEE-University of Ideas in 2004. During the residence, Walid conceived his project on the water issue, “Waiting for Water”. The project, between 2004 and 2007, has been developed together with the group "watercollection-net" and presented in Biella, Ivrea, Venice Biennale, Sicily, Gemona del Fiuli, Turin, also in occasion of the 2006 Winter Olympics. He's currently working as costume designer for a movie.
Work in the exhibition:
Waiting for water (poster, 2006)
The street is mostly invisible to us, a space of passage that both allows for and determines the movement of people, as the shape of a riverbed guides the flow of water. Placing a temporary barrier through a passage into urban space, a black sheet that blocks vision and in doing so makes the street itself newly visible as a hard enclosure. It directs attention. It creates a question mark for the public. But it also allows for choices; the flexible cloth receives, softens and spreads signals from wind, from the touch of people, from their action against its backdrop and the redirection of their movements.
It thus calls attention to our relationship to nature and to one another, and the potential conflict and responsibility such a relation necessarily involves. It also proposes an alternative kind of public space.
This project is an open and collective work, in the sense that its ultimate form is determined first by a loose-knit group, ‘watercollection- net’, second, by the response by the public, and further even by natural forces and the qualities of the material, here a metaphor for the fundamental and precious source of life, water. Our intervention is the product of a free and expanding network, and part of a series of artistic acts in public spaces that aim to draw attention to the qualities of water, its centrality in contemporary political conflict and its centrality in any solution to such issues.
Water should remain free, as our own potential freedom is reflected in its rippling surfaces.
Palestinian designer/artist born in Nazareth, Walid Maw'ed gratuated at the Institute of Fashion and Textile, Beit Sahour. Costume designer for movies such as “Paradise now”, he was awarded an A.M.Qattan Foundation grant to participate in UNIDEE-University of Ideas in 2004. During the residence, Walid conceived his project on the water issue, “Waiting for Water”. The project, between 2004 and 2007, has been developed together with the group "watercollection-net" and presented in Biella, Ivrea, Venice Biennale, Sicily, Gemona del Fiuli, Turin, also in occasion of the 2006 Winter Olympics. He's currently working as costume designer for a movie.
Work in the exhibition:
Waiting for water (poster, 2006)
The street is mostly invisible to us, a space of passage that both allows for and determines the movement of people, as the shape of a riverbed guides the flow of water. Placing a temporary barrier through a passage into urban space, a black sheet that blocks vision and in doing so makes the street itself newly visible as a hard enclosure. It directs attention. It creates a question mark for the public. But it also allows for choices; the flexible cloth receives, softens and spreads signals from wind, from the touch of people, from their action against its backdrop and the redirection of their movements.
It thus calls attention to our relationship to nature and to one another, and the potential conflict and responsibility such a relation necessarily involves. It also proposes an alternative kind of public space.
This project is an open and collective work, in the sense that its ultimate form is determined first by a loose-knit group, ‘watercollection- net’, second, by the response by the public, and further even by natural forces and the qualities of the material, here a metaphor for the fundamental and precious source of life, water. Our intervention is the product of a free and expanding network, and part of a series of artistic acts in public spaces that aim to draw attention to the qualities of water, its centrality in contemporary political conflict and its centrality in any solution to such issues.
Water should remain free, as our own potential freedom is reflected in its rippling surfaces.
Biography:
Mazen Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut.
He is still trying to cope with this reality since, by drawing comics and playing music.
Works in the exhibition:
(posters, 2008)
Mazen Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut.
He is still trying to cope with this reality since, by drawing comics and playing music.
Works in the exhibition:
(posters, 2008)
Biographies:
Alessandro Petti is a Research Fellow at Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths College, University of London and Architect based in Bethlehem. He co-curated different research projects on the contemporary urban condition such as Borderdevices, Uncertain States of Europe and Stateless Nation. showed in various museums and biennales. He has written on the emerging spatial order dictated by the paradigm of security and control (Archipelagos and enclaves, Bruno Mondadori 2007, Dubai Offshore Urbanism in Heterotopia and the City, Routledge 2008, Asymmetry in globalized space, forthcoming). He is working on a research project entitle “Atlas of Decolonization”, an architectural documentation on the re-use, re-inhabitation and subversion of colonial structures.
Sandi Hilal graduated in Architecture. She works as a consultant with the UNRWA on the Camp improvement program. She is a visiting professor at the International Academy of Art Palestine. She is co-curator of the project Decolonizing Architecture. In 2006 she obtained the title of research doctorate in Transborder policies for daily life in the University of Trieste. From 2001 to 2005 she has been teaching assistant in Visual Arts and Urban Studies at the IUAV University of Venice. She’s a co-curator of different research projects shown internationally: Stateless Nation and Arab City Project (with Alessandro Petti), Border devices (with multiplicity). Her publications include Senza Stato una Nazione, (Marsilio, Venezia 2003); Living Among the Dead (Domus 880, April 2005); Road Map (Equilibri, August 2004), la stanza dei sogni (Liguori Editore, 2004), Stateless Nation (Archis, Preview # 4 2003). Her projects have been published in national and international newspapers and magazines: the New York Times, Il Manifesto, Al Ayyam, Al- Quds, Art Forum, and Archis.
Work in the exhibition:
Decolonizing Architecture (slideshow and poster, 2008)
Our project uses architecture to articulate the spatial dimension of a process of decolonization.
Recognizing that Israeli colonies and military bases are amongst the most excruciating instruments of domination, the project assumes that a viable approach to the issue of their appropriation is to be found not only in the professional language of architecture and planning but rather in inaugurating an ‘arena of speculation’ that incorporates varied cultural and political perspectives through the participation of a multiplicity of individuals and organizations.
The project engages a less than ideal world. It does not articulate a utopia of ultimate satisfaction. Its starting point is not a resolution of the conflict and the just fulfilment of all Palestinian claims; also, the project is not, and should not be thought of, in terms of a solution. Rather it is mobilizing architecture as a tactical tool within the unfolding struggle for Palestine. It seeks to employ tactical physical interventions to open a possible horizon for further transformations.
We suggest revisiting the term of “decolonization” in order to maintain a distance from the current political terms of a “solution” to the Palestinian conflict and its respective borders. The one-, two-, and now three-state solutions seem equally entrapped in a “top-down” perspective, each with its own self-referential logic. Decolonization implies the dismantling of the existing dominant structure - financial, military, and legal - conceived for the benefit of a single national-ethnic group, and engaging a struggle for justice and equality. Decolonization does not necessarily imply the forced transfer of populations. Under the term decolonization, for example, Jewish communities could go and live in the Palestinian areas.
Whatever trajectory the conflict over Palestine takes, the possibility of further partial-or complete -evacuation of Israeli colonies and military bases must be considered. Zones of Palestine that have or will be liberated from direct Israeli presence provide a crucial laboratory to study the multiple ways in which we could imagine the reuse, re-inhabitation or recycling of the architecture of Israel’s occupation at the moment this architecture is unplugged from the military/political power that charged it.
Alessandro Petti is a Research Fellow at Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths College, University of London and Architect based in Bethlehem. He co-curated different research projects on the contemporary urban condition such as Borderdevices, Uncertain States of Europe and Stateless Nation. showed in various museums and biennales. He has written on the emerging spatial order dictated by the paradigm of security and control (Archipelagos and enclaves, Bruno Mondadori 2007, Dubai Offshore Urbanism in Heterotopia and the City, Routledge 2008, Asymmetry in globalized space, forthcoming). He is working on a research project entitle “Atlas of Decolonization”, an architectural documentation on the re-use, re-inhabitation and subversion of colonial structures.
Sandi Hilal graduated in Architecture. She works as a consultant with the UNRWA on the Camp improvement program. She is a visiting professor at the International Academy of Art Palestine. She is co-curator of the project Decolonizing Architecture. In 2006 she obtained the title of research doctorate in Transborder policies for daily life in the University of Trieste. From 2001 to 2005 she has been teaching assistant in Visual Arts and Urban Studies at the IUAV University of Venice. She’s a co-curator of different research projects shown internationally: Stateless Nation and Arab City Project (with Alessandro Petti), Border devices (with multiplicity). Her publications include Senza Stato una Nazione, (Marsilio, Venezia 2003); Living Among the Dead (Domus 880, April 2005); Road Map (Equilibri, August 2004), la stanza dei sogni (Liguori Editore, 2004), Stateless Nation (Archis, Preview # 4 2003). Her projects have been published in national and international newspapers and magazines: the New York Times, Il Manifesto, Al Ayyam, Al- Quds, Art Forum, and Archis.
Work in the exhibition:
Decolonizing Architecture (slideshow and poster, 2008)
Our project uses architecture to articulate the spatial dimension of a process of decolonization.
Recognizing that Israeli colonies and military bases are amongst the most excruciating instruments of domination, the project assumes that a viable approach to the issue of their appropriation is to be found not only in the professional language of architecture and planning but rather in inaugurating an ‘arena of speculation’ that incorporates varied cultural and political perspectives through the participation of a multiplicity of individuals and organizations.
The project engages a less than ideal world. It does not articulate a utopia of ultimate satisfaction. Its starting point is not a resolution of the conflict and the just fulfilment of all Palestinian claims; also, the project is not, and should not be thought of, in terms of a solution. Rather it is mobilizing architecture as a tactical tool within the unfolding struggle for Palestine. It seeks to employ tactical physical interventions to open a possible horizon for further transformations.
We suggest revisiting the term of “decolonization” in order to maintain a distance from the current political terms of a “solution” to the Palestinian conflict and its respective borders. The one-, two-, and now three-state solutions seem equally entrapped in a “top-down” perspective, each with its own self-referential logic. Decolonization implies the dismantling of the existing dominant structure - financial, military, and legal - conceived for the benefit of a single national-ethnic group, and engaging a struggle for justice and equality. Decolonization does not necessarily imply the forced transfer of populations. Under the term decolonization, for example, Jewish communities could go and live in the Palestinian areas.
Whatever trajectory the conflict over Palestine takes, the possibility of further partial-or complete -evacuation of Israeli colonies and military bases must be considered. Zones of Palestine that have or will be liberated from direct Israeli presence provide a crucial laboratory to study the multiple ways in which we could imagine the reuse, re-inhabitation or recycling of the architecture of Israel’s occupation at the moment this architecture is unplugged from the military/political power that charged it.
Biography:
Born 1968, Brussels; since 1988 Eyran Heller lives in Israel, today resides and works in Tel Aviv. Graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a BA in Political Science and a M.Sc. in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.
Following his work with various international NGOs, Eytan pursued film studies at NYU. Since then, he has filmed and directed television programs for Israeli television and his short videos have been exhibited in Israel and abroad, most recently at the Biennale for Contemporary Art in Poznan, Poland. Eytan is a co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian forum ‘Artists Without Walls’ alongside with Galit Eilat, Oren Sagiv, Said Murad and Suleiman Mansoor.
Work in the exhibition:
Love Sum Game (video, 2006)
‘Love Sum Game’ was recorded in Abu Dis (East Jerusalem) and stages a tennis match using the wall as the net dividing the Israeli and Palestinian occupied territories. As opposed to a transparent tennis net, the wall obstructs any possibility of visual contact between the players. Its monumental presence acts as a physical and psychological barrier preventing any possibility of dialogue. It makes it difficult to even guess what’s happening on the other side of the road. The game reflects the absurdity of this condition of inclusion and exclusion that the Palestinian people live in on a day-to-day basis. The video was made thanks to the constant and long-standing cooperation and dialogue between local Palestinian activists and the Artists Without Walls association. ‘Love Sum Game’ is the first of a trilogy the artist is currently making.
Born 1968, Brussels; since 1988 Eyran Heller lives in Israel, today resides and works in Tel Aviv. Graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a BA in Political Science and a M.Sc. in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics.
Following his work with various international NGOs, Eytan pursued film studies at NYU. Since then, he has filmed and directed television programs for Israeli television and his short videos have been exhibited in Israel and abroad, most recently at the Biennale for Contemporary Art in Poznan, Poland. Eytan is a co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian forum ‘Artists Without Walls’ alongside with Galit Eilat, Oren Sagiv, Said Murad and Suleiman Mansoor.
Work in the exhibition:
Love Sum Game (video, 2006)
‘Love Sum Game’ was recorded in Abu Dis (East Jerusalem) and stages a tennis match using the wall as the net dividing the Israeli and Palestinian occupied territories. As opposed to a transparent tennis net, the wall obstructs any possibility of visual contact between the players. Its monumental presence acts as a physical and psychological barrier preventing any possibility of dialogue. It makes it difficult to even guess what’s happening on the other side of the road. The game reflects the absurdity of this condition of inclusion and exclusion that the Palestinian people live in on a day-to-day basis. The video was made thanks to the constant and long-standing cooperation and dialogue between local Palestinian activists and the Artists Without Walls association. ‘Love Sum Game’ is the first of a trilogy the artist is currently making.
Biography:
Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas are frequent collaborators, making films and videos, and connecting cultural practice and political thinking. They are both involved in 16 Beaver, a space in New York City initiated and run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic/cultural/economic/political projects. Recently they completed Camp Campaign (2007), entailing a 45-day journey across the United States in 2006 which attempted to address the internment camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by connecting it to various contemporary and historic sites of ‘juridical exception’ in the USA and elsewhere.
Work in the exhibition:
What Everybody Knows (video, 2006-2008)
7 days from 16 trips, DV, 1 hr 58 mins and photographs of wall encircling Bethlehem and Beit jala (posters)
In the spring of 2006, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, travelled together to Palestine and Israel, searching, researching and witnessing the situation. From their trips, they created a series of videos that document their encounters with people struggling, resisting, surviving, living, and thinking through their everyday lives. Some of those include a geographer, a professor, an activist, a former detainee, an architect, a bedouin... Each video corresponds to one trip, a particular journey from the 16 days, relying on the material captured only that day, from different situations and places including: Jerusalem, Naqab, Hebron, Lydd , Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Shuafat and more... What Everybody Knows, is a play on what everybody ignores possibly. It is an attempt to really think about the question of Palestine and reformulate it through an experience that these individuals offer in each case. It unfolds in a series of questions that call for more questions. Together all 16 of these situations create a diagram or a map and may provoke thought / discussion about the social, psychological, and political dimensions of contemporary life for Palestinians in occupied Palestine and in Israel.
Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas are frequent collaborators, making films and videos, and connecting cultural practice and political thinking. They are both involved in 16 Beaver, a space in New York City initiated and run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic/cultural/economic/political projects. Recently they completed Camp Campaign (2007), entailing a 45-day journey across the United States in 2006 which attempted to address the internment camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by connecting it to various contemporary and historic sites of ‘juridical exception’ in the USA and elsewhere.
Work in the exhibition:
What Everybody Knows (video, 2006-2008)
7 days from 16 trips, DV, 1 hr 58 mins and photographs of wall encircling Bethlehem and Beit jala (posters)
In the spring of 2006, Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, travelled together to Palestine and Israel, searching, researching and witnessing the situation. From their trips, they created a series of videos that document their encounters with people struggling, resisting, surviving, living, and thinking through their everyday lives. Some of those include a geographer, a professor, an activist, a former detainee, an architect, a bedouin... Each video corresponds to one trip, a particular journey from the 16 days, relying on the material captured only that day, from different situations and places including: Jerusalem, Naqab, Hebron, Lydd , Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Shuafat and more... What Everybody Knows, is a play on what everybody ignores possibly. It is an attempt to really think about the question of Palestine and reformulate it through an experience that these individuals offer in each case. It unfolds in a series of questions that call for more questions. Together all 16 of these situations create a diagram or a map and may provoke thought / discussion about the social, psychological, and political dimensions of contemporary life for Palestinians in occupied Palestine and in Israel.
Biography:
An Israeli-born artist based in Amsterdam since 1990, Yael Davids is dealing with the human body as object, space and architecture, often using performance to explore issues of social violence. Most recently, her work has been shown at Galleria Enrico Fornello, Prato (solo); "Here We Dance" at Tate Modern, London; "End on Mouth", Israeli Center of Digital Art, Holon; Galerie Akinci, Amsterdam (solo); "Playground Festival", STUK, Leuven; "ArTempo: Where Time Becomes Art", Palazzo Fortuny, Venice; and "Memorial to the Iraq War", ICA, London.
Works in the exhibition:
A line, a sentence, a word (slideshow of a performance and poster, 2007)
‘A line, a wall, a frontier, a human shield, a demonstration, etc. The work attempts to construct a language arrived at by seemingly arbitrary motions, a paradox of visual speech within a locus of silence. The other factor is the actual physicality of the works situation - all of the individuals in the group will experience a very limited visual field, (the wall itself), this will also apply to their now restricted verbal field. There is a magnitude that surrounds my urge to protest. To react is equal to the volume of the question - What to do? How to protest? How to react? To express the question within the protest. I believe it is a notion, which is significant for our time.
I am collecting journalist’s photographs related to demonstrations that had an impact, small or large on history. I follow the wider events of history by chronologically linking the history of demonstrations, such as; the suffragettes picket lines - 1924, South Africa - Sharpsville, protest against the rule for non-whites to carry identity cards - 1960, Washington D.C., civil rights marches - 1963, and so on.
I am struck by how essential and effective these spectacles are. It is a very particular spectacle that harbours a curious borderline - between frustration and hope. I wonder what is the moment when one stimulates the other. Do I perceive choreography in the rules and the aesthetics of a protest?
What happens to the existential energy of expression, of protest in a situation when one cannot protest and cannot express one’s self?’
Excerpt from A line, a sentence, a word, by Yael Davids for the Memorial to the Iraq War, ICA London, 2007.
A line, a sentence, a word (slideshow of a performance and poster, 2007)
‘A line, a wall, a frontier, a human shield, a demonstration, etc. The work attempts to construct a language arrived at by seemingly arbitrary motions, a paradox of visual speech within a locus of silence. The other factor is the actual physicality of the works situation - all of the individuals in the group will experience a very limited visual field, (the wall itself), this will also apply to their now restricted verbal field. There is a magnitude that surrounds my urge to protest. To react is equal to the volume of the question - What to do? How to protest? How to react? To express the question within the protest. I believe it is a notion, which is significant for our time.
I am collecting journalist’s photographs related to demonstrations that had an impact, small or large on history. I follow the wider events of history by chronologically linking the history of demonstrations, such as; the suffragettes picket lines - 1924, South Africa - Sharpsville, protest against the rule for non-whites to carry identity cards - 1960, Washington D.C., civil rights marches - 1963, and so on.
I am struck by how essential and effective these spectacles are. It is a very particular spectacle that harbours a curious borderline - between frustration and hope. I wonder what is the moment when one stimulates the other. Do I perceive choreography in the rules and the aesthetics of a protest?
What happens to the existential energy of expression, of protest in a situation when one cannot protest and cannot express one’s self?’
Excerpt from A line, a sentence, a word, by Yael Davids for the Memorial to the Iraq War, ICA London, 2007.
Biographies:
Yael Bar-On, visual artist and stage director, graduated from "artists for social change" program in Musrara Art School in Jerusalem, the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem, Israel and the School of Alternative Theatre in Sholomi, Israel. In her work she seeks to explore the social landscape of a society in a state of conflict. Social activism is an important part of her life, which she has consistently pursued alongside her artistic career. Yael participated in the residency program- University of Ideas in Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto 2008.
Ahmad Malki, cinematographer, graduated from European Film College in Denmark in 2005. He has worked in various artistic fields. Ahmad’s main focus is primarily cinematography, as well as practicing other activities that can develop his awareness in the field of visual arts, such as musical knowledge and film editing. Lately he has been working freelance in films, art projects & several photo exhibitions. Ahmad received a grant from Palm Foundation to study at the European Film College in 2004 and from ALMAKAN (Jordan) for the exhibition, “Invisible” as well as a residency for two weeks in 2007. He was awarded an A.M.Qattan Foundation grant to participate in University of Ideas in Italy in 2008.
Yael Bar-On, visual artist and stage director, graduated from "artists for social change" program in Musrara Art School in Jerusalem, the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem, Israel and the School of Alternative Theatre in Sholomi, Israel. In her work she seeks to explore the social landscape of a society in a state of conflict. Social activism is an important part of her life, which she has consistently pursued alongside her artistic career. Yael participated in the residency program- University of Ideas in Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto 2008.
Ahmad Malki, cinematographer, graduated from European Film College in Denmark in 2005. He has worked in various artistic fields. Ahmad’s main focus is primarily cinematography, as well as practicing other activities that can develop his awareness in the field of visual arts, such as musical knowledge and film editing. Lately he has been working freelance in films, art projects & several photo exhibitions. Ahmad received a grant from Palm Foundation to study at the European Film College in 2004 and from ALMAKAN (Jordan) for the exhibition, “Invisible” as well as a residency for two weeks in 2007. He was awarded an A.M.Qattan Foundation grant to participate in University of Ideas in Italy in 2008.
Sakiko Sugawa, organizer and media artist, graduated from Hunter College of City University of New York, majoring in Media studies. While living in NY, she initiated various collaborative projects including, the photo exhibition and the lecture and experimental workshop series called, "Open University," while starting the project, “MIX IT UP” in 2002 as a T-shirt design. “MIX IT UP” T-shirt were displayed and sold at local clothing stores in NY. In 2008, the shirts were used in the campaign, “Wonderwall project” in which an Israeli man and Palestinian woman wore the shirt in front of the separation wall. From 2005-2008, She directed the continuing education program, at Kyoto Seika University while building the independent organization, "hanare," which includes a weekly café, visual projects, and workshop/lectures in Kyoto. Sakiko has also conducted a series of visual propaganda projects, combining graphic design, and marketing techniques with social and political issues. Her projects, regardless of their size and medium, aim to question and challenge social and cultural cliché, and propose new ideas as well as new ways of living. In 2008 she was awarded a grant by Pace Futuro, an Italian based peace organization to develop ‘Mix It Up’ at the University of Ideas by Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto. www.hanareproject.net
Works in the exhibition:
in forty years (posters and video installation, 2008-2009)
In forty years consists of two art projects that focus on issues connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
‘MIX IT UP’, by Sakiko Sugawa, is dedicated to Israeli and Palestinian singles, offering an online meeting place and micro-scale conflict resolution. Using the concept of marriage as a tactic for creating a new dimension in the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, the website provides an online space for individuals from the two societies to meet in a friendly and potentially romantic context. [...] While maintaining the conventional functionality of the dating service website, ‘MIX IT UP’ also offers ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ and ‘Helpful Tips’ to give advice to the website members. It provides a list of organizations working on the issues of marriage in Palestine and Israel, while highlighting the fact the current marriage related laws of Israel are designed to prevent people, based on their country of citizenship, from exercising a basic right, getting married, forming a family, raising children with spouses they choose.
’Alii bella gerunt, tu felix Austria nube.’* Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus.’ ‘Let other people wage war. You, happy Austria, marry instead. For the goddess of Love gives lands to you that others must win by battle.’ *Since the 15th century, this saying has been used to describe the political practice of Habsburg family.
‘Alii bella gerunt, tu felix Austria nube’, by Yael Bar-On and Ahmad Malki, is a work in process, that explores the idea of marriage between two people from Israel and Palestine. It references the reality where a love story between the two sides seems impossible. Eventually leading the artists to find the concept of marriage, a union that requires two parties to negotiate constantly and equally as an individual strategy to intervene into political issues, even simply as a symbolic act. The project consists of a performance, video installation, and publication. The first stage of the project took place during the ‘University of Ideas 2008,’ in Biella Italy.
Close Up (video installation, 2009)
Ahmad- in Ramallah Yael - in Jerusalem Looking at each other from distance during the Gaza war 2009.
Biography:
Michael Blum is an artist and writer based in Vienna and New York. His work aims at critically re-reading the production of culture, myths, and history. Recent projects include A Tribute to Safiye Behar, 9th Istanbul Biennial (2005), Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co., De Appel, Amsterdam (2006), Cape Town - Stockholm (On Thembo Mjobo), Mobile Art Production, Stockholm (2007), and Exodus 2048, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2008), and New Museum, New York (2009).
Michael Blum is an artist and writer based in Vienna and New York. His work aims at critically re-reading the production of culture, myths, and history. Recent projects include A Tribute to Safiye Behar, 9th Istanbul Biennial (2005), Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co., De Appel, Amsterdam (2006), Cape Town - Stockholm (On Thembo Mjobo), Mobile Art Production, Stockholm (2007), and Exodus 2048, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2008), and New Museum, New York (2009).
Work in the exhibition:
Ciao Ghatoul (video, 2007)
produced in collaboration with the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon/IL - Tel Aviv, 2007.
A man is so annoyed by a cat’s on-going meows, that he decides to abduct the cat and deport it to the West Bank. He thus embarks on a long and complicated journey with the sole purpose of ridding himself of this unpleasant neighbour.
Ciao Ghatoul (video, 2007)
produced in collaboration with the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon/IL - Tel Aviv, 2007.
A man is so annoyed by a cat’s on-going meows, that he decides to abduct the cat and deport it to the West Bank. He thus embarks on a long and complicated journey with the sole purpose of ridding himself of this unpleasant neighbour.
Biography:
lives and works between Saida (Lebanon) and Paris (France). He graduated with a degree in agricultural engineering in 2001, and has been working in photography and video since 2002. He completed a one-year residency at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2003 and a one year residency at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Selected collective exhibitions (photography and video): 2009: SHrajah Biennal, 2008: Hiroshima Art Fair; Taipei Biennial; Homeworks, Beirut; Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin; Lieux de vie -Memoire et phantasme de ’enracinement, Abbaye St Andre - Centre d’art contemporain, Meymac; Tate modern; International Triennale of Contemporary Art - Re-Reading the Future (ITCA), Prague; New Ends, Old Beginnings Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, 2007: White space Black space, espace Blank, Paris, 2006: Centre Pompidou, Paris; La Cabane, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2005: Mémoires Vives, Plattform, Berlin, 2004: Code Inconnu, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Le Bâtiment, Hiroshima, Japan.
lives and works between Saida (Lebanon) and Paris (France). He graduated with a degree in agricultural engineering in 2001, and has been working in photography and video since 2002. He completed a one-year residency at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2003 and a one year residency at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Selected collective exhibitions (photography and video): 2009: SHrajah Biennal, 2008: Hiroshima Art Fair; Taipei Biennial; Homeworks, Beirut; Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin; Lieux de vie -Memoire et phantasme de ’enracinement, Abbaye St Andre - Centre d’art contemporain, Meymac; Tate modern; International Triennale of Contemporary Art - Re-Reading the Future (ITCA), Prague; New Ends, Old Beginnings Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, 2007: White space Black space, espace Blank, Paris, 2006: Centre Pompidou, Paris; La Cabane, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2005: Mémoires Vives, Plattform, Berlin, 2004: Code Inconnu, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Le Bâtiment, Hiroshima, Japan.
Works in the exhibition:
Marche Turque (video, 2007)
The frame focuses on the hands of a pianist playing Mozart’s La Marche Turque, but the piano’s hammers are buffered so that only the dull, wooden sound of the keys being pressed and released in time to the music can be heard.
Mosque, Saida June 2005 c-print (poster)
Cote d’Azur Hotel, Jnah, built in 1973 c-print (poster) from Beirut Bereft, architecture of the forsaken and map of the derelict
Volcano, Mont Asso Japan 2004 c-print (poster)
Marche Turque (video, 2007)
The frame focuses on the hands of a pianist playing Mozart’s La Marche Turque, but the piano’s hammers are buffered so that only the dull, wooden sound of the keys being pressed and released in time to the music can be heard.
Mosque, Saida June 2005 c-print (poster)
Cote d’Azur Hotel, Jnah, built in 1973 c-print (poster) from Beirut Bereft, architecture of the forsaken and map of the derelict
Volcano, Mont Asso Japan 2004 c-print (poster)
Biography:
Born in Jerusalem, Israel, Tal Adler currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Adler is an artist, activist, curator and lecturer. In his artistic work he employs methodologies of academic and journalistic research and of creative social-political activism. He studied in various art institutions, including the post-graduate program in Bezalel Academy for Art, and is holding a Magister in Fine Arts from the Art Academy in Vienna, Austria.
Born in Jerusalem, Israel, Tal Adler currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Adler is an artist, activist, curator and lecturer. In his artistic work he employs methodologies of academic and journalistic research and of creative social-political activism. He studied in various art institutions, including the post-graduate program in Bezalel Academy for Art, and is holding a Magister in Fine Arts from the Art Academy in Vienna, Austria.
Works in the exhibition:
(posters, 2000-2001)
The two posters are from a series of 9 posters done during 2000 - 2001 in Israel. They were always designed in black and white and printed in A3 size, hacking copy machines in institution-offices like the city’s municipality or the art academy, without money and often without permission. The posters were created either as a reaction to a political event or to accompany a political, social and/or cultural action/demonstration.
‘stop unrooting trees’
accompanied an action initiated by the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, planting young olive trees by Israeli activists in Palestinian land as a reaction to the uprooting olive trees by the state in preparation of the separation wall.
‘Our independence, their Nakba’
(Nakba is disaster in Arabic, used as the Palestinian term for the loss of Palestine in 1948). The poster was created for the 53rd Israeli Independence Day, to reflect about the other side of the celebrations: the Palestinian day of mourning.
(posters, 2000-2001)
The two posters are from a series of 9 posters done during 2000 - 2001 in Israel. They were always designed in black and white and printed in A3 size, hacking copy machines in institution-offices like the city’s municipality or the art academy, without money and often without permission. The posters were created either as a reaction to a political event or to accompany a political, social and/or cultural action/demonstration.
‘stop unrooting trees’
accompanied an action initiated by the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, planting young olive trees by Israeli activists in Palestinian land as a reaction to the uprooting olive trees by the state in preparation of the separation wall.
‘Our independence, their Nakba’
(Nakba is disaster in Arabic, used as the Palestinian term for the loss of Palestine in 1948). The poster was created for the 53rd Israeli Independence Day, to reflect about the other side of the celebrations: the Palestinian day of mourning.
Giorgio Agamben, HOMO SACER. IL POTERE SOVRANO E LA NUDA VITA, Torino, Einaudi, 1995. Giorgio Agamben, STATO DI ECCEZIONE. HOMO SACER, Vol 2/1, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2003. Yehuda Amichai, LOVE POEMS: A BILINGUAL EDITION. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. James Baldwin, NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME, Dell Publishing Co, Inc., 1961. Mahmoud Darwish, TUESDAY AND THE WEATHER IS CLEAR, Poem. Mahmoud Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden, Actes Sud, 2007. Rene Gabri, TREBISONDA OR BALASSANIAN IN THE TIME OF THE FOXES, Quodlibet, 2007. David Grossman, UNTIL THE END 0F THE LAND, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2008. Yehoshafat Harkabi, ISRAEL’S FATEFUL HOUR. HarperCollins 1989. Samir Kassir CONSIDERATIONS SUR LE MALHEUR ARABE, Actes Sud 2004. Ilan Pappe, THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE, London and New York: Oneworld, 2009. Alessandro Petti, ARCIPELAGHI E ENCLAVE. ARCHITETTURA DELL’ORDINAMENTO SPAZIALE CONTEMPORANEO, Mondadori Bruno, 2007. Munif, Abdul Rahman, CITIES OF SALT (CITIES OF SALT TRILOGY, VOL 1), New York: Vintage Books. 1987. Joe Sacco, PALESTINE, Fantagrafics books, 2001. Edward Said, ORIENTALISM, New York, Pantheon Books, 1978. Edward Said, THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE, New York, Vintage Books Editions, 1992. Edward Said, CULTURE AND RESISTANCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH EDWARD W. SAID (2003) [entrevistes realitzades per David Barsamian]. Ziad Antar and Rasha Salti, BEIRUT BEREFT, ARCHITECTURE OF THE FORSAKEN AND MAP OF THE DERELICT, Sharjah Biennial, March 2009. Mohamed Soueid CABARET SOUAD, Dar Al-Adab 2004.
Meeting between founder members, authorities and partners of ReMidaBiella.
30 June 2006, Cittadellarte.
Participants:
Paolo Naldini, Cittadellarte Managing Director and Founder member of ReMidaBiella
Giulia Chiaberge, Cultural operator and Founder Member of ReMidaBiella
Sylvie Calmon, Cultural operator and Founder Member of ReMidaBiella
Doriano Raise, Councilor for Environmental Quality, Commune of Biella
Silvio Belletti, Chairman of COSRAB the Biella district waste disposal consortium
Davide Bazzini, Councilor for the Environment, Province of Biella
Nicoletta Favero, Councilor for Education, Commune of Biella
Franco Volpe, General Secretary, Confartigianato, Biella
Luca Guzzo, Director of the CNA, Biella
Mario Novaretti, Chairman of ASCOM, Biella
Alberto Gatti, Chairman of the Local Tourist Board, Biella
30 June 2006, Cittadellarte.
Participants:
Paolo Naldini, Cittadellarte Managing Director and Founder member of ReMidaBiella
Giulia Chiaberge, Cultural operator and Founder Member of ReMidaBiella
Sylvie Calmon, Cultural operator and Founder Member of ReMidaBiella
Doriano Raise, Councilor for Environmental Quality, Commune of Biella
Silvio Belletti, Chairman of COSRAB the Biella district waste disposal consortium
Davide Bazzini, Councilor for the Environment, Province of Biella
Nicoletta Favero, Councilor for Education, Commune of Biella
Franco Volpe, General Secretary, Confartigianato, Biella
Luca Guzzo, Director of the CNA, Biella
Mario Novaretti, Chairman of ASCOM, Biella
Alberto Gatti, Chairman of the Local Tourist Board, Biella
Following, some excerpts from the meeting, after which all the participants signed the agreement sealing their commitment to opening a ReMidaBiella center in 2007.
Paolo Naldini: We meet around the Mediterranean table, symbol of the desire to share a common project (...).
The mother cell that is Cittadellarte has generated an autonomous structure, ReMidaBiella.
The genetic code from which ReMidaBiella arises has a dual source: the first is the ReMida center in Reggio Emilia, which offers an extraordinary educational model for Italian Culture, and whose purpose is the recycling and recirculation of industrial waste.
The second is Cittadellarte, and the myth of the Third paradise, consisting of a new balance between the intelligence of Nature and human intelligence that is entering into a collision course with the former.
(...) The ReMidaBiella center aims to develop Remedian creativity, nurtured by the inspiration of creative responsibility. Earlier this year we began talking with people involved with safeguarding the environment at administrative, political and industrial level, and the various category associations in the district, and we got an extraordinary response.
The target is to establish a structure independent from Cittadellarte, in the form of a non-profit cultural association in synergy with the partners, municipal administrations and educational services, with the aim of achieving sustainability within three years.
Giulia Chiaberge: Sylvie and I are educators and work on teaching projects for the schools of Biella. In our experience we have found a lack of teaching materials associated with environmental themes. We compensated for this using leaves, wood and other objects found in nature, until we took a course to become managers of a ReMida center, whose recycling philosophy is very much in line with our way of working.
Our work consists of developing an emporium with all the materials we can find, and in particular with the typical materials found in the district’s factories, which we can use to organize didactic activities.
In Cittadellarte, the ReMidaBiella project has found a welcoming and creative home, and technology thanks to which it is possible to realize this great dream.
Sylvie Calmon: The ReMida center consists of a store-emporium, which in effect is a public utility through which waste products exit the economic cycle to enter a new life cycle: we call them ‘resurrected’.
The ReMidaBiella center also has space for the workshops and training courses provided by the center itself to favor the creative re-utilization of materials. I’d like to emphasize the term creative re-utilization, an important concept that favors the development of the imagination, which permits a transformation of ideas and a new way of perceiving the environment and the relationships between ourselves and the world that surrounds us.
Doriano Raise: The project marries perfectly with the aims of the local authorities, and also takes advantage of the drive given by the industrial world. The administration has great faith in ReMidaBiella because it effectively increases the population’s awareness and respect for the environment, which is fundamental for the cultural growth of our country.
Silvio Belletti: ReMidaBiella is a project that brings benefits simply by dealing with the question of waste in the district, and I sincerely hope that a partner as strong as the Piedmont Region will support it.
These days the question of waste and refuse is an enormous problem, and for this I really would like to plead the case of ReMidaBiella with all my strength precisely because it underscores the contribution the world of education and creativity can make to the ecology of our district.
Davide Bazzini: ReMidaBiella bears witness to the fact that we’re going through a change in pace: we’re not talking about waste any more, but the way we perceive our relationship with the future.
In peasant cultures waste didn’t exist, waste was invented with the city, in which it is now the main source of conflict.
The very first examples of city organization were agreements for the disposal of sewerage, first opposed and later declared an economic resource. From this it is clear that the cultural change in the relationship between products and waste has very distant origins, and it is on this that the innovation and creativity of the ReMidaBiella center comes into play. On this we have to play a reciprocally significant role.
I have presented the project to the provincial council, and the council showed great interest and a desire to take part. We intend to extend the ReMida network as a provincial workshop for environmental education: to put it into an existing network of relations with schools, and allow it to develop. The very existence of the project shows that the possibility of improving our territory while safeguarding the environment is not just a Utopia.
Nicoletta Favero: I am happy that Sylvie and Giulia’s experience has led to a project that brings together environmental education and creativity. The collaboration with Cittadellarte is very important both because it provides such a large and beautiful space and for its contribution in terms of creativity and management. I feel it is also important to involve all possible users: from children to teachers, the disabled, the elderly, to transfer the wisdom, work and creativity of their places. I sincerely wish the project a full and satisfactory development.
Franco Volpe: The Confartigianato groups together four hundred different trades that produce the raw material that ReMidaBiella uses.
We support the project, and consider it of fundamental importance for the Biella district. Through our releases, bulletins and website we provide and receive information from many different sectors. The colors and forms that can be developed from process waste are very interesting for industry, too. We have made ourselves available and are just waiting for instructions on how to act in terms of developing all the information necessary for the success of this initiative.
Luca Guzzo: Our organization works to inform small industries about how to manage waste, which materials have to be stored, which are instead subject to payment, criminal liability, etc. Through the ReMidaBiella project, we now provide information on the kind of waste products they can donate to the re-utilization center.
Everyone who studies the ecology has to apply the three R’s: Reduction, Recovery, Recycling.
We believe that recycling is the first step toward correctly managing the environment. But the higher steps, reduction and recovery, are the ones that lead to real safeguarding of the environment: like ReMidaBiella that offers the possibility of recovering waste.
My complements for the initiative, which I heartily support.
Alberto Gatti: The idea of the creative re-utilization center is a call to use the characteristic know-how of our territory. The new generations will have to learn to manage the ecology. ReMidaBiella valorizes our territory, not only in terms of sustainable development, but by stimulating the creation of contacts between operators and users in environmental education and teaching. The presence of all the institutions bears witness to the fact that the project’s aims are most certainly common to all, as is our commitment to it.
Paolo Naldini: We meet around the Mediterranean table, symbol of the desire to share a common project (...).
The mother cell that is Cittadellarte has generated an autonomous structure, ReMidaBiella.
The genetic code from which ReMidaBiella arises has a dual source: the first is the ReMida center in Reggio Emilia, which offers an extraordinary educational model for Italian Culture, and whose purpose is the recycling and recirculation of industrial waste.
The second is Cittadellarte, and the myth of the Third paradise, consisting of a new balance between the intelligence of Nature and human intelligence that is entering into a collision course with the former.
(...) The ReMidaBiella center aims to develop Remedian creativity, nurtured by the inspiration of creative responsibility. Earlier this year we began talking with people involved with safeguarding the environment at administrative, political and industrial level, and the various category associations in the district, and we got an extraordinary response.
The target is to establish a structure independent from Cittadellarte, in the form of a non-profit cultural association in synergy with the partners, municipal administrations and educational services, with the aim of achieving sustainability within three years.
Giulia Chiaberge: Sylvie and I are educators and work on teaching projects for the schools of Biella. In our experience we have found a lack of teaching materials associated with environmental themes. We compensated for this using leaves, wood and other objects found in nature, until we took a course to become managers of a ReMida center, whose recycling philosophy is very much in line with our way of working.
Our work consists of developing an emporium with all the materials we can find, and in particular with the typical materials found in the district’s factories, which we can use to organize didactic activities.
In Cittadellarte, the ReMidaBiella project has found a welcoming and creative home, and technology thanks to which it is possible to realize this great dream.
Sylvie Calmon: The ReMida center consists of a store-emporium, which in effect is a public utility through which waste products exit the economic cycle to enter a new life cycle: we call them ‘resurrected’.
The ReMidaBiella center also has space for the workshops and training courses provided by the center itself to favor the creative re-utilization of materials. I’d like to emphasize the term creative re-utilization, an important concept that favors the development of the imagination, which permits a transformation of ideas and a new way of perceiving the environment and the relationships between ourselves and the world that surrounds us.
Doriano Raise: The project marries perfectly with the aims of the local authorities, and also takes advantage of the drive given by the industrial world. The administration has great faith in ReMidaBiella because it effectively increases the population’s awareness and respect for the environment, which is fundamental for the cultural growth of our country.
Silvio Belletti: ReMidaBiella is a project that brings benefits simply by dealing with the question of waste in the district, and I sincerely hope that a partner as strong as the Piedmont Region will support it.
These days the question of waste and refuse is an enormous problem, and for this I really would like to plead the case of ReMidaBiella with all my strength precisely because it underscores the contribution the world of education and creativity can make to the ecology of our district.
Davide Bazzini: ReMidaBiella bears witness to the fact that we’re going through a change in pace: we’re not talking about waste any more, but the way we perceive our relationship with the future.
In peasant cultures waste didn’t exist, waste was invented with the city, in which it is now the main source of conflict.
The very first examples of city organization were agreements for the disposal of sewerage, first opposed and later declared an economic resource. From this it is clear that the cultural change in the relationship between products and waste has very distant origins, and it is on this that the innovation and creativity of the ReMidaBiella center comes into play. On this we have to play a reciprocally significant role.
I have presented the project to the provincial council, and the council showed great interest and a desire to take part. We intend to extend the ReMida network as a provincial workshop for environmental education: to put it into an existing network of relations with schools, and allow it to develop. The very existence of the project shows that the possibility of improving our territory while safeguarding the environment is not just a Utopia.
Nicoletta Favero: I am happy that Sylvie and Giulia’s experience has led to a project that brings together environmental education and creativity. The collaboration with Cittadellarte is very important both because it provides such a large and beautiful space and for its contribution in terms of creativity and management. I feel it is also important to involve all possible users: from children to teachers, the disabled, the elderly, to transfer the wisdom, work and creativity of their places. I sincerely wish the project a full and satisfactory development.
Franco Volpe: The Confartigianato groups together four hundred different trades that produce the raw material that ReMidaBiella uses.
We support the project, and consider it of fundamental importance for the Biella district. Through our releases, bulletins and website we provide and receive information from many different sectors. The colors and forms that can be developed from process waste are very interesting for industry, too. We have made ourselves available and are just waiting for instructions on how to act in terms of developing all the information necessary for the success of this initiative.
Luca Guzzo: Our organization works to inform small industries about how to manage waste, which materials have to be stored, which are instead subject to payment, criminal liability, etc. Through the ReMidaBiella project, we now provide information on the kind of waste products they can donate to the re-utilization center.
Everyone who studies the ecology has to apply the three R’s: Reduction, Recovery, Recycling.
We believe that recycling is the first step toward correctly managing the environment. But the higher steps, reduction and recovery, are the ones that lead to real safeguarding of the environment: like ReMidaBiella that offers the possibility of recovering waste.
My complements for the initiative, which I heartily support.
Alberto Gatti: The idea of the creative re-utilization center is a call to use the characteristic know-how of our territory. The new generations will have to learn to manage the ecology. ReMidaBiella valorizes our territory, not only in terms of sustainable development, but by stimulating the creation of contacts between operators and users in environmental education and teaching. The presence of all the institutions bears witness to the fact that the project’s aims are most certainly common to all, as is our commitment to it.
The project envisages two organizational structures: a store-emporium, a workshop and a multifunctional open space for concerts, events, installations, workshops and shows.
The warehouse organization is based on the model provided by Reggio Emilia: the waste and reject products from industry collected in the companies taking part in the initiative are selected, exhibited and made available to the user for educational and creative uses.
Domestic and any other refuse from private sources is excluded.
To highlight the particular nature of the Biella district’s industry, a specific department will be established, dedicated to the textile industry and its associated activities.
Different kinds of materials will be collected: paper, wood, string, leather, glass, plexiglas, yarns, fabrics, haberdashery, plastic, rubber, wallpaper, sponge, carpet, metal, packaging...
The workshop is a space designed to accommodate the center’s activities.
One of the activities involves organizing ReMidaDays: special days for transforming the city’s streets and squares and involve young and old in the realization of an event bringing together all the projects shared by schools, institutions, individual citizens and cultural associations, emphasizing to the commitment and role of the companies involved.
The other activities of ReMidaBiella, in collaboration with the Cittadellarte Education Department, include environmental education projects, training courses for teachers, operators and educators, didactic workshops for scholars and workshops on the theme of creative recycling open to all, with the collaboration of artists and craftsmen.
The user base is mixed: from teachers to scholars of all orders and levels, to cooperatives and social, touristic, cultural and environmental associations and institutions for the elderly.
The warehouse organization is based on the model provided by Reggio Emilia: the waste and reject products from industry collected in the companies taking part in the initiative are selected, exhibited and made available to the user for educational and creative uses.
Domestic and any other refuse from private sources is excluded.
To highlight the particular nature of the Biella district’s industry, a specific department will be established, dedicated to the textile industry and its associated activities.
Different kinds of materials will be collected: paper, wood, string, leather, glass, plexiglas, yarns, fabrics, haberdashery, plastic, rubber, wallpaper, sponge, carpet, metal, packaging...
The workshop is a space designed to accommodate the center’s activities.
One of the activities involves organizing ReMidaDays: special days for transforming the city’s streets and squares and involve young and old in the realization of an event bringing together all the projects shared by schools, institutions, individual citizens and cultural associations, emphasizing to the commitment and role of the companies involved.
The other activities of ReMidaBiella, in collaboration with the Cittadellarte Education Department, include environmental education projects, training courses for teachers, operators and educators, didactic workshops for scholars and workshops on the theme of creative recycling open to all, with the collaboration of artists and craftsmen.
The user base is mixed: from teachers to scholars of all orders and levels, to cooperatives and social, touristic, cultural and environmental associations and institutions for the elderly.
