[-empyre-] questions about teaching media art in ME

[Isak Berbic]

Nat:
"For example, a seminar I taught at Beirut’s Academy of Fine Art (ALBA) on media installation art beyond the screen translated back into me having to rethink my own references of spatiality and mediation. For how do you teach site-specific media work installed in public space, in a city which very much lacks public and communal space?"

Your observation on the general nature of public space in the middle east is quite right. More so in respect to public space intended for congregation. The urbanization and architecture of cities (working as a silent medium) aids in the hindering of assembly. In addition, social segregation is common practice; villa's are behind walls, restaurants have sections for families and for bachelors, car windows are tinted, living compounds are frequent: (whether for the wealthy, the westerners, the laborers, the tourists). These are all reflections of societies that take public space, not as a site for "mixing" or "exchanging" with potential for contesting of social norms, but rather as a transitional space to be temporarily used for whatever purpose - and then back to the safety and liberty of one's own private quarters. I would say that the most interesting and contradictory to this are the mosques which gather large populations for Jumu'ah every friday,
 where muslim men of all kinds touch shoulders and bow on equal footing (this is in reference to the sharing of the same physical public space). Another intriguing example are the commodified spaces of shopping malls and bazars, where private spaces become public spaces as they are utilized by the wide public. This is perhaps most prevalent in the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf where thousands of people visit enormous shopping malls which resemble small cities. They walk the corridors as streets and sit on benches as in parks. In these cases, however, the spaces are controlled where one needs to be a shopper; there are opening and closing hours. That said, there is potential for assembly as long as space permits. 

As can be seen by the current protests in Bahrain, where people have co-opted an "illegitimate" public space - a roundabout, or a street crossing to gather. The reason is simple: Bahrain does not have a square as Cairo's Tahrir, but the people have found an adequate solution.



Laura:
"What do your students want to learn? 
What is the fit between their interests and the curriculum? 
Do people refer a canon of Western art when studying a given medium, or incorporate local and regional artists? 
Where do your students want to show their work; in what scenes do they want to intervene? 
And, how do they plan to make a living?"

Firstly, there are some aspects to art education which are to be expected and are present in most societies across the world. I experienced a similar environment in Chicago, USA. The study of fine arts is very specialized and as a result we (at the College of Fine Arts and Design, UoS in Sharjah) have small student and faculty numbers, attract very particular kind of students, and struggle with the cultural perception that art is a pastime. Therefore, it is true that within the Universities of the UAE architecture and design are far more popular. This is a reflection of parents advising their daughters and sons to study that which they deem will guarantee them jobs; (there is some truth to that) as well as students themselves who are more inclined to study "applied" arts rather than art. My particular College was started under the patronage of the ruler of Sharjah: Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, who himself is a scholar, historian, playwright
 and a patron of the arts. As a result we benefit from his generous support in many forms including financial support, acknowledgment, as well as the fact that he personally visits the thesis exhibition the graduating students put on at the end of each academic year. His daughter Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi who is the Sharjah Biennial director played a major role in starting up the art school 10 years ago. Sharjah, considered a cultural center of the United Arab Emirates, has demonstrated a dedication to humanities with 17 operating museums, an international Biannual of contemporary art, a Calligraphy Biannual, and many other manifestations which provide a vital context for the study of arts. My students regularly work as interns, assistants to artists, and some end up working within these institutions after their graduation. Our proximity to Dubai, which is a commercial center with numerous selling galleries, auctions and an annual art fair also serves as a
 financial prospect for young aspiring artists from the UAE, and the wider region. Abu Dhabi is set to open the Guggenheim, Louvre, Performing arts Museum and more in the years ahead.

Our College faculty is international and as a result teaching is in English language. This is also the case in the medical college at the University of Sharjah. All the other colleges are Arabic taught. While my personal hope is that we will gain more Arab (and Emirati) faculty, my opinion is that an international faculty for the teaching of art is appropriate. Our diverse experiences and perspectives are significant for the dialectic that unfolds at critiques with students. Our students are Emirati and Pan-Arab , and we have a small number of international students who are here as their parents are expats in the UAE. Being a very young program we have had the opportunity to develop the curriculum afresh. We have worked very hard to produce a curriculum of international standard and awareness, while being inclusive of material reflecting the region we work in; the history of islamic art, arab art, and contemporary art in the middle east today. I do think
 that there can always be improvement with a reflective curriculum based on student feedback, new faculty and visiting artists. 

My students exhibit in abundance. Already in 3rd year they are being invited by galleries and international exhibitions. A student that graduated in June last year is now preparing a big solo exhibition at one of the major galleries in Dubai. Perhaps an aspect of this is the fact that there are so few of them, and the scale of investment into the arts is much larger than the number of living artists in the country. There are philanthropic organizations, galleries and art fairs who are all headhunting for young emerging artists to present to audiences and emerging collectors. It is the most lucrative moment to be a young artist in this region. 

The above describes a happy picture, and for the most part from my particular experience it is accurate. One of my reservations and biggest worries is that young artist are very quickly "sponsored" and authorized by official institutions and galleries giving them very little space for experimental, unofficial, irresponsible, grassroots workings. I believe that this is a missing element and a very necessary one for an organic, spontaneous development of a diverse basis in the art community here. This basis would ideally foster alternative movements, artist run spaces, opposition and debate with a sharp criticality and independence. At times artists without resources become the most resourceful. It might sound absurd, but I am not arguing that institutions should stop supporting young artists; but I am arguing that young artists need the space to act unofficially and without the immediate patronage from officializing organizations. I voiced this position
 during a panel discussion "On patronage of the arts in the UAE" in Abu Dhabi 2 years ago, and still feel the same today.



--


One of my strategies in the teaching of site/context specific (beyond the screen) art "in a city which very much lacks public and communal space" is to engage the available urban/non-urban, private and public structures, documentary mediums (for the purpose of recording actions and installations), using social media and online dissemination - and thus in hope to encourage students to come up with alternative resolutions to the idea of "site" and "public". We also discuss the idea that art history(s) is a public space as well, itself a public discourse(s) on art. 

A class which I teach in various incarnations and evolutions in the past years has involved the use of new media to record ephemeral actions in specific space and time. Students produce work in locations as well as audio/visual artifacts and representations of their site/context projects. 

After some basic exercises we make site visits to selected physical locations relevant to the United Arab Emirates: to a non-urban empty and free landscape (desert, water / “off the grid”) and other controlled, structured, commodified urban spaces (the city, shopping mall, designated public space). I have found the desert and water as very interesting locations due to their seeming vacancy. Yet their terrain of tankers, pumps, trading ships are truly potent contested spaces of politics and global capital.

Naturally as a part of the class we discuss the history of such practices looking at theoretical frameworks, critical positions, artists and artworks. We discuss things like Nicolas Bourriaud and Relational Aesthetics, Inside the White Cube by Brian O'Doherty and look at multitudes of artist ranging from Allan Sekula to Emily Jacir, and a very important local UAE artist Hassan Sharif.



I received permission to share some work with you from my students: Khadija Fikir and Nada Dada.
There are also some images of site visits.

The following link will take you to selected examples of outcomes in order to illustrate some of the work my students have done in this class. This past semester Khadija Fikri, a third year student, for one of her site based projects, has placed herself (literally) into Martha Rosler's "Semiotics of the Kitchen". Besides inserting her body into the frame and time of the video she has also placed herself into the title - retitling the work: Martha Rosler and Khadija Fikri, 1975-2011; therefore proposing the possibility of her own name within the particular art history of Martha Rosler's "Semiotics of the Kitchen", 1975, and the wider context of the time.

Nada Dada undertook a long series of performances (and still going)  in the privacy of her bathroom. The bathroom for her is the ultimate private space, a space in which she maintains the freedom to produce any art. Subsequently the images are publicly shown as photographs as well as photo albums on her Facebook pages.


Click here to view the images:
http://gallery.me.com/isakberbic/100019

On this link if you click on the arrow at the bottom left of the screen you can download the entire video by Khadija Fikri:
http://gallery.me.com/isakberbic#100014/Khadija%20and%20Martha%20in%20Semiotics%20of%20the%20Kitchen&bgcolor=black




From: Laura Marks <lmarks at sfu.ca>
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Cc: nat at xs4all.nl; isakberbic at yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 8:53 PM
Subject: questions about teaching media art in ME

Hello Empyre listers,

Nat, I appreciate your distinction between political art and political action. Needless to say, what's going on in Tahrir Square is extremely important, and so is the way Egyptians have mobilized social media. But I agree with you that it's important for Western scholars, curators etc. not to demand a certain kind of political art from artists in the Middle East.

So I'd like to introduce another line of questioning that seems more mild but has its own deep politics. It is directed to those of you who teach media art, or art generally, in the Middle East--Nat with your varied experience, Isak, others. What do your students want to learn? What is the fit between their interests and the curriculum? Do people refer a canon of Western art when studying a given medium, or incorporate local and regional artists? Where do your students want to show their work; in what scenes do they want to intervene? And, how do they plan to make a living? 

Thanks,
Laura Marks

----- Original Message -----
From: "nat muller" <nat at xs4all.nl>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Wednesday, February 9, 2011 6:54:48 AM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] the artist in conflict

dear tim,

thank you for bringing up this issue.

> I welcome more thoughts by Horit and Nat (and certainly by members  
> of the list-- recently subscribed members should know that they are  
> free to join in the conversation, and can do so by replying to this  
> e-mail) about how they understand the interrelatedness of  
> accountability and affect within the artistic context.  One wonders  
> whether such interrelatedness wasn't being practiced by Ahmed  
> Bassiouny on the day of January 28, when his capture of sound and  
> media would have been so crucial for the rearticulation of events  
> happening so rapidly.  Or perhaps, in this instance, his very  
> presence on Tahrir Square provided corporeal media through which  
> such capture was itself an expression of resistance.
i think we have to be careful and distinguish between a performative  
politicised artistic act and an artist's political act. i think most  
artists and art workers in tahrir square are present as vocal  
egyptians - in the first place - calling for political change, but  
would not necessarily conflate this with their artistic practice. some  
artists like graphic designer Mo Fa (http://ganzeer.blogspot.com/)  
have made amazing banners and protest stencils, but this is more a  
matter of putting artistic skills and strategies to use in a direct  
and functional way to further dissent and resistance. we see similar  
strategies being used in demos in the palestinian village of bil'in.  
so i definitely think that a variety of actions and approaches  
(artistic ones being one of those) can open up more common ground for  
a united struggle, i do think we have to caution against artists  
becoming spokespersons for political causes.

there is always the infatuation of the global art world with the  
spectacle of conflict. palestinian artist emily jacir commented during  
israel's july war on lebanon in 2006:"I am sure there will be  
conferences organized, teach-ins and always the "hero" filmmaker who  
will risk life to make a documentary, the readings, the art exhibits,  
and the art world will eat the Lebanese artists like pieces of  
chocolate."  this is exactly what happened. though many lebanese  
artists were already well-established internationally, 2006 really put  
beirut on the international art map. i guess there's something  
irristible about the cocktail of eros and thanatos. it will be  
interesting to see how things pan out in egypt.  after 2006 lots of  
international funds were poured into lebanon for artists to make work  
about the war, many euro-med collaborations were set up, and this did  
not always result in the most interesting and engaging projects, on  
the contrary. many artists are still trying to articulate and grapple  
with the aftermath of lebanon's civil war.  finding a modus and an  
aesthetic language that can comment on these events usually takes time.
i am reminded of a little video of lebanese musican and artist mazen  
kerbaj, made by lebanese filmmaker wissam charraf after the 2006 war,  
titled " A Hero Never Dies".  the title is telling: we see mazen  
standing on his balcony, paralysed by the events.  towards the end we  
see him walking - trumpet in hand - in the rubble of beirut's bombed  
southern suburbs (dahyeh). he lifts the trumpet to his lips and blows  
one singular note.  somehow this image brings back the powelessness of  
the artist in the face of these events.  the upside is of course: he  
still blows his note, he still is voicing his presence.
_______________________________________________
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