[-empyre-] -empyre- Introducing Mirene Arsanios, Ayah Bdeir, Mayssa Fattouh, Shuruq Harb

[Mayssa Fattouh]

Thank you Renate and Tim for inviting me to be part of this very timely
discussion indeed.

I have just returned today from a workshop given here in Doha by Younes
Rahmoun who has presented his latest installation at the Mathaf Museum of
Modern Art in Doha. He is one of the few artists in the "Middle East" that
develops interactive work and this exhibition is one of the few to hold
interactive works showing among others Wafaa Bilal's installation of views
taken from a camera implanted in the back of his head. Similarly to these
two artists, in my work I aim at challenging formal and conformists views of
contemporary art expectations together with the geopolitical labels and the
formulas of uniqueness that often trap the artist in the required format of
the art market. I believe that as a curator my concern should be towards a
contribution in the making and writing of art history of the arab world
outside the "westerncentric" perspective.

On the other hand, new media as it is called, I feel no longer fits in the
realm of this century, it was perhaps still new until the late 80s but with
the expansion of the computer's capacities and the internet's proliferation
it is just another available medium. This said though artists in the Middle
East are still experimenting with these platforms for several reasons that
were highlighted in a conference about digital arts in Casablanca, organized
by Crea Numerica with the aim to identify "digital artists", hosting
platforms and challenges they face in the French speaking countries which
pretty much are in all corners of the world. I was asked then to assess the
Lebanese scene. The first question I was asked by the artists is what is
considered as digital art today? it is important to note here that art
schools in Lebanon hardly ever introduce art outside the classical formats
of fine arts in their curriculum, this though is now slowly changing.
Informal art schools are opening around the region - this, interestingly, is
perhaps also due to the lack of governmental art policies and their general
lack of interest in investing in the cultural fields with the exception of
Gulf countries.
I hear the comment discussed earlier about internet as a space of freedom
and democracy, it does perhaps provide an immediacy in the accessibility
which could result in the interpretation of a certain democracy or freedom
but it would be a total illusion to think that these platforms are free of
interferences.

I apologize for the disruptive flow, I'm happy to dwell on all above points
but for now will leave the floor to the other guests.

Look forward to the continuation and a growing momentum of the discussion.

Mayssa
-- 
Independent Curator
mayssa.f at gmail.com
Skype mayssafattouh
+97466894029
Doha, Qatar

On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Timothy Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> Thanks very much to Horit, Nat, and Eliot for contributing to the
> discussion during what turned out to be a tremendously momentous week in the
> Middle East!  We continue our conversation this week with four new featured
> guests, Mirene Arsanios (Lebanon), Ayah Bdeir (Lebanon/US), Mayssa Fattouh
> (Qatar), Shuruq Harb (Palestine).  We are delighted that Ayah decided to
> join us after we made the initial announcement of featured guests at the
> start of the month.
>
> We look forward to hearing your thoughts and we welcome you warmly to
> -empyre-.
>
> Best,
>
> Renate and Tim
>
> =================================================================
> Mirene Arsanios (Lebanon)  is curator, critic,
> and co-founder of 98weeks Project Space and
> artist organization in Beirut.  She studied art
> history in Rome and received her Masters in
> Contemporary Art from Goldsmiths College, London.
> She previously worked as a researcher at Ashkal
> Alwan and as an Assistant Curator at MACRO,
> Museum of Contemporary Art Rome. She now teaches
> at the American University of Beirut.
>
> Ayah Bdeir (Lebanon/US) is an engineer and interactive artist who does not
> believe in boundaries set by disciplines or cultures.  With an upbringing
> between Lebanon, Canada, and the US, her work uses experimental tools to
> look at deliberate and subconscious representations of reality.  Living and
> working between Beirut and New York, Ayah has exhibited at Peacock  Visual
> Arts in Scotland, the New Museum, Ars Electronica, Badcuyp, and Location
> One.  She is an Honorary Fellow at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New
> york  where she was in residence in 2008, and mentored the regional reality
> tv-show Stars of Science promoting science and technology innovation in the
> Middle East.  In 2010, Ayah was awarded a Creative Commons Fellowship which
> includeed spearheading the first Open Hardward definition and co-chairing
>  the Open Hardward Summit at the New York Hall of Science.  She works
> commercially with collaborators as art&d studio.
>
> Mayssa Fattouh (Qatar) is an independent curator
> and cultural practitioner born in Beirut and
> currently based in Doha Qatar. Fattouh has been
> developing her practice between Beirut, Dubai and
> Bahrain where she worked as Curatorial and
> Program Manager at Al Riwaq Gallery. Her latest
> ongoing project
> <http://receptiveground.blogspot.com/>Receptive
> Ground, is a web based archive platform
> addressing subjects of art and culture in the
> Middle East and the Arab Gulf. Fattouh is
> currently pursuing her Master's of Arts in
> Communication at The European Graduate School in
> Saas-Fee, Switzerland.
>
> Shuruq Harb (Palestine) is an artist based in
> Ramallah, Palestine. Working with text and
> photography, her artistic practice deals with
> issues around writing, language and image.  Harb
> has worked on several online projects such Across
> Borders in 2005/2006, and is currently developing
> online photography courses for  Birzeit
> University 's Virtual Gallery. She is the
> co-founder of ArtTerritories, an online platform
> for critical exchange on matters of art and
> visual culture in the Middle East and the Arab
> World.
>
> --
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
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