[-empyre-] Introducing Isak Berbic and Larissa Sansour

[Renate Ferro]

We are delighted to introduce this week's guests, Larissa Sansur and 
Isak Berbic.   We're appreciate their willingness to agree to open 
this month's discussion of New Media and the Middle East.

Isak Berbic (UAE)  is an artist, writer and lecturer born in Bosnia 
and Herzegovina, at that time called Yugoslavia. In 1992 as 
Yugoslavia dissolved and Bosnia was under attack, he and his family 
became refugees, moving from Croatia, through the Czech Republic to a 
refugee camp in Denmark, and lastly to the United States. Isak first 
learned about art from his mother, father and brother. He studied 
Photography, Film and Electronic Media at the University of Illinois 
at Chicago. In Chicago, he practiced art, worked in theater, and was 
art director of a political monthly journal. In 2007 he moved to the 
Middle East; United Arab Emirates, where he currently teaches media 
at the College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Sharjah. He is 
a continuing contributor to numerous projects and publications on 
contemporary art. His research deals with histories, politics, 
tragedy, memory, humor, exile, and the limits of representation.

Isak has exhibited internationally including: Thirst 2010, Bait Al 
Serkal, Sharjah Art Museum, United Arab Emirates; Dojima River 
Biennale 2009, Osaka, Japan; Singapore Biennale 2008; Jatiwangi Art 
Festival 2008, Indonesia; The First International Photography 
Biennial, Teheran, Iran 2007; Odavde/Otuda, From, Here/From There, 
Hunt Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis, USA 2007; Normalization, 
in honor of Nikola Tesla, Galerija Nova, WHW Zagreb, Croatia 2004. He 
participated in the International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA 
2008 Singapore, the Chicago Festival of Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film 
2006, Take a Deep Breath: an interdisciplinary symposium, Tate 
Modern, London, UK 2007.


Larissa Sansour (UK) was born in Jerusalem and lives in London after 
studying  Fine Art in Copenhagen, London, and New York.  Her work is 
immersed in the current political dialogue and utilizes video art, 
photography, experimental documentary, the book form and the 
internet.  Sansour borrows heavily from the language of film and pop 
culture.  By approximating the nature, reality, and complexity of 
life in Palestine and the Middle East to visual forms normally 
associated with television and televised pastime, her grandiose and 
often humorous schemes clash with the gravity expected from works 
commenting on the region.

Larissa has participated in the Busan Biennial in Korea, the Third 
Guangzhou Triennial, Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, PhotoCairo4, 
Istanbul Biennial and Liverpool Biennial. Her short film, A Space 
Exodus, was nominated in the Best Short category at the Dubai 
International Film Festival.  In 2009, her graphic novel, The Novel 
of Nonel and Vovel--a collaboration with Oreet Ashery--first appeared 
in Venice Biennale bookshops and was later launched at Tate Modern, 
UK, and the Brooklyn Museum, US.

Welcome to -emypre-, Isak and Larissa.  We're very much looking 
forward to learning about your work and to profiting from your 
perspectives.

Renate and Tim

Among the highlights of 2010 are solo shows in New York, Paris and 
Stockholm as well as the Liverpool Biennial.


-- 
Timothy Murray
Director, Society for the Humanities
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
Professor of Comparative Literature and English
A. D. White House
27 East Avenue
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853