Tag: video

October 31, 2021

22 – Tamara Al-Mashouk: SKIN (de-colonized)

This work is a recontextualization of a piece from 2016 titled SKIN where close up topographies of bodies can easily be perceived as landscapes. The subtitles are written in a conversational tone mimicking that of an artist talk and create a space of reflection on my relationship to my skin then and now. It places the issues of race and modern day imperialism face to face with the conversation on the climate crisis.

Tamara Al-Mashouk is a London based Arab artist, curator, and organizer. Through multi-channel video, performance, and architectural installation, her work explores the movement of people across societal and geographic borders and negotiates the relationship between home, identity, and memory. It examines resistance as a site of potential and expands epigenetics beyond the body into place and matter.

She has screened video internationally at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Yuan Museum in Beijing, Fábrica de Arte Cubano in Havana, and more. She has been interviewed in Forbes, Vice Arabia, and on BBC Radio. She has curated countless panels including for Arab Women Artists Now, has spoken at Tate Britain, was a 2018-2019 research fellow with the Center for Arts Design and Social Research and a 2019 – 2020 Traveling Fellow for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She holds a BA in architecture from Wellesley College and a Post-Bac and MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston.

October 31, 2021

22 – Alaa Alsaraji & Zainab Rahim: The land of 30 million palm trees

The story of Iraq’s climate and environmental crisis is one of many layers, each generational challenge compounded by another. We wanted to use the iconic (and delicious) Basra Date Syrup jar as a starting point from which to explore the legacies of palm groves among other issues in the soil, water and air. But we also wanted to simultaneously rewind and fast forward – to relish in the abundance that Iraq once had and the joyous moments that we hope will return.

Alaa Alsaraji is a London-based visual artist, designer and creative facilitator. Through her creative practice she aims to explore themes such as belonging, reimagining space and community and the impacts of Islamophobia in British society, predominately using the medium of digital illustration. She also works with various creative and educational organisations and collectives as a facilitator, delivering creative workshops with children and women’s groups. In her work she always seeks to emphasise the value of using creativity as a pedagogical process to address and explore structural issues and their impact on individuals and communities.

Alaa is also the arts editor of Khidr Collective, a multidisciplinary artist collective creating platforms and spaces for young Muslim creatives through the annual Khidr Zine and online platform.

Zainab Rahim is a writer and editor. She works for a legal charity called RAID, holding corporations to account for human rights abuse and environmental damage. She has recently completed an MA in Postcolonial Culture & Global Policy.

Alongside this, Zainab is the non-fiction editor of @KhidrCollective’s annual zine and has contributed to their newest issue, WATER. She is also the editor-in-chief of a commentary website called The Platform (@YourPlatformUK) seeking to share marginalised stories.

Zainab enjoys archives and photography, as well as feature writing, and hopes to continue developing her skills in these areas. Her review of television drama Baghdad Central was published in Issue 36 of Critical Muslim by Hurst Publishers. Follow her @zainoted.

October 31, 2021

22 – DUBAIS/Nadia Buyse: How to DIE/DIY

It’s “safe” to say we are living in a climate crisis… Why do I feel like my proximity to the solution is so far away? Why do I feel guilty? How can I be responsible when the same forces that marginalised people of the Global Majority also created structures where we are all reliant on hydrocarbon production to maintain socio-economic structures… particularly those of us from, or with connections to, the Middle East and North Africa? Also, WHY CAN’T I BUY A CUCUMBER NOT WRAPPED IN PLASTIC?

It’s “safe” to say we are living in a climate crisis… How do we protect our earth? How do we protect ourselves? How do we embody/care for that fear/anxiety/anger/sadness? How do we express that we, the people of the Global Majority, are intimidated by the “unbearable whiteness of green” which thinks “locally” and doesn’t speak for the native homes destroyed by colonial enterprise, war, and oppression.

It’s “safe” to say that we are living in a climate crisis… It’s not a question anymore. In 2018, I made a score book entitled “How to DIE/DIY” as a guide to create strategies for how we can approach our own inevitable mortality. With a verbal prompt and a visual landscape I frankensteined together from books left near dumpsters or bought for less than a quid at the charity shop, I offer provocations to the audience to create their own symphonies, arias, monologues, punk bands, etc.

I encourage you, dear, to respond/react/embody from the script I offer you… at the top of your lungs or from the bottom of your soul, use this invitation to express your feelings and your own proximity to crisis.

Thank you for being here.

[xoxo] DUBAIS

Photo: Devaki Jones

DUBAIS is a perpetually-changing concept band from visual artist, cultural activist, and musician Nadia Buyse. From absurd synth covers, to guitar ballads about dating the devil , to bedroom pop songs about murdering your lover, Nadia’s music jumps from genre to genre, being tied together by a DIY aesthetic and video art that spans over installation, performance, visual albums, experimental pop operas, etc. Although DUBAIS operates like a band, it’s actually a vehicle for conceptual work and cultural activism in which Nadia uses the tropes of pop music to examine Diasporic migration, neo-liberal dystopias, emotional incapacitations, consumer technologies, hybrid identities, intersectional feminism, and transnational communities. DUBAIS has released music, published text, taught a multitude of workshops, lectured, exhibited work, and performed internationally in a variety of spaces and places ranging from Conflict resolution Peace camps in Central Asia to dOCUMENTA (13).

Nadia is also currently in the punk band snoozers, a community artist at ONCA, and a part time tutor/ lecturer at BIMM in London.

Instagram: @DUBAIS

Bandcamp: DUBAIS / snoozers

YouTube: DUBAIS / ONELINERS (Visual EP)

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