The programme accompanying the exhibition Constellations of Multiple Wishes features artists, activists, and thinkers whose work and research considers modes of solidarity and organising. Reviewing and proposing new constellations and complicating notions of time, whilst also engaging with peripheral archives and stories connected to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Carrying the spirit of our overall framework of fostering durational solidarities, the programme proposes a further evaluation of the exhibitions’ idea of potential history by looking at faded ideas of the past and interrogating their relevance for the present. Practices of solidarity are foregrounded, and exercises of imagining, and re-worlding are discussed and tested in gatherings online and in person.

The programme for Constellations of Multiple Wishes opens with a workshop led by KURS (Miloš Miletic and Mirjana Radovanovic) in which participants collectively create a banner for solidarity, inspired by discussions around Suheir Hammad’s poem Talisman. The banner will be installed at the balcony of The Mosaic Rooms for the duration of the exhibition. To continue the sharing of practices, including those inspired by poetry, exhibiting artist Basim Magdy will be in conversation about his multiple inspirations with writer Lucija Šutej and curator Angelina Radakovic, over cake. Open School East alumni James Jordan Johnson responds to the exhibition with a performance, further expanding on his practice of corporally investigating layers of memory.  Self-organised groups continue to be welcome to take over our space with selected and related readings, this will include the Old Mountain Assembly with a new iteration on a Proposal for a Vocabulary of Multitudes.

The framework of the programme is held together by conversations bringing together thinkers who look at cultural solidarities and networks in the context of NAM and beyond, both past and present. Amin Alsaden, Yazid Anani, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Eszter Szakács will speak about their research and writing on solidarities in local, regional and transnational contexts in a panel moderated by Paula Barreiro López. Curators Daniela Berger, Bojana Piskur, Grace Samboh and Rasha Salti will talk about exhibition making, organising and new constellations of collaboration. In a workshop co-presented with Syrian Arts and Culture Festival, researcher Omar Ferwati from Forensic Architecture will introduce methods that can enable citizen-led forensic investigations.

A pillar of the programme questions personal and other archives of the early NAM period bringing them in dialogue with each other and with the multiplicity of voices in the programme. Marwa Arsanios returns to The Mosaic Rooms with a reading group. Mila Turajlic gives a live documentary performance of archival materials from the Non-Aligned Newsreels powered by Filmske Novosti project, filmed by Stevan Labudovic, who documented these summits as well as the Algerian independence movement. In a performative, collective reading of imagined dialogues, artist Sandra Muteteri Heremans will share her research for a film in progress on the experiences of African students in the USSR during the Cold War. Lina Dzuverovic and the working group of the Yugoslav Non-Aligned Movement Solidarity Archive, the Documents of Olja Dzuverovic, will discuss the next steps for the working documents of her aunt, the political worker Olja Dzuverovic, documenting Yugoslav political relations with Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, and Angola during the period of decolonisation. In a broadcast performance and listening session artist and curator Yasmina Reggad, in conversation with artist Urok Shirhan, will closely review the archive of the liberation radios in 1960s and 70s Algeria and explore its utopias.

The Future Threads strand, dedicated to (co)creating sustainable ecologies with a focus on climate justice informed by urgent non-Western related questions, is devised in collaboration with collectives and partnerships. We re-invite Qanat Collective for a reading and walk alongside the river Thames contemplating the conservation of gifted and lost objects through time, mud and tides. Land resilience and the urgency of centring reparative approaches is discussed with artists Marwa Arsanios and Youngsook Choi, and curator Khanyisile Mbongwa in an offsite event co-presented with Nottingham Contemporary and Primary. In an ongoing broadcast partnership with Radio Al Hara, we host a conversation on practices of working with land with the collective MADEYOULOOK, moderated by Marwa Arsanios.

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CALENDAR OF PROGRAMME OF EVENTS IN APRIL & MAY

You can now find Squish Station; a new interactive clay-play area in our bookshop every Sunday.

Researcher and gallery-based educator, Dena Bagi, has created prompts to help guide an interaction with clay. Dena is interested in how clay can connect us with our bodies, strengthening our innate relationship with the earth. She believes touching clay can help us become mindful, or connected, to feel better in a fast-paced — and sometimes scary — world.

Sit down, squish, and create with clay.

Leave your creations behind so that they can sit alongside those made by others and inspire the next people that come along.

Designed for children aged 4-11, but suitable for all.

Images:

1 & 2: Photo by Andy Stagg
Square and 3: Photo by Nicola tree

In partnership with the Architecture Foundation, The Mosaic Rooms brings together artists and researchers to shed light on conceptualising the house museum. Mahmoud Khaled, Nadine Nour el Din and Laura Mark are in conversation about their ongoing research and work on house museums in Cairo and London. In focus is Khaled’s research and art practice on proposals for house museums, Laura speaks about house museums in London, in particular Walmer Yard and Nadine’s work highlights Mr. & Ms. Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo.

The online discussion is part of programme accompanying the exhibition Fantasies on a Found Phone, Dedicated to the Man Who Lost it by Mahmoud Khaled.

The Architecture Foundation leads the conversation on the development of London and contributes to a global discourse about the architect’s changing role and responsibilities through the delivery of an accessible public programme that makes space for emerging architects, groups historically underrepresented in the profession, and representatives of a wide range of related disciplines. Exploring the architect’s capacity to combat climate change and systemic social inequalities represent central concerns of the programme.

About the speakers

Mahmoud Khaled was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and currently works in Berlin. His practice is both process oriented and multidisciplinary, can be regarded as formal and philosophical ruminations on art as a form of political activism, and a space for critical reflection. He has presented in international solo shows and group shows such as Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2019), Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2018), Istanbul Biennale (2017), Sharjah Bienniale (2017), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2016). He was a guest artist at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin programme in 2020.

Laura Mark is an award-winning architecture critic, curator and filmmaker. She is the Keeper of Walmer Yard, where she curates a number of cultural projects which look at how we experience architecture. Laura is currently undertaking a PhD at Newcastle University and teaches at Sheffield School of Architecture. Trained as an architect, Laura worked in architectural practice and as part of the editorial team of the Architects’ Journal. Laura’s films include the documentary Zaha: An Architecture Legacy (2017). In 2020, Laura was named by the London Festival of Architecture and the Design Museum as one of ‘an emerging generation of voices in architecture who are expanding the parameters of what architecture can be’. More about Laura Mark

Nadine Nour el Din (b. Cairo, Egypt) is a researcher, writer, and cultural practitioner. She holds a BA in Visual Arts from the American University in Cairo, an MA in History of Art from The Courtauld, and an MA in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her academic, artistic, curatorial, and research work focuses on the arts and cultural production of the Arab world and wider region.

Images:

1.Mahmoud Khaled, Proposal For a House Museum of an Unknown Crying Man, 2017, Commissioned for the 15th Istanbul Biennial. Courtesy of the artist and Sharjah Art Foundation.
2.Mr. & Mrs. Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum, Cairo. Courtesy of Nadine Nour el Din
3.Walmer Yard. Photography by Helene Binet. Courtesy of Walmer Yard.
4.Portrait Mahmoud Khaled. Courtesy of the portrayed.
5.Portrait Laura Mark. Courtesy of the portrayed.
6.Portrait Nadine Nour el Din. Courtesy of the portrayed.

Artist Hayv Kahraman shares a reading list accompanying her exhibition Gut Feelings currently on at The Mosaic Rooms. In this new work, the artist delves into scientific research to situate the effects of trauma in the body and to investigate methodologies of physical healing and care. These readings form some of the artists research when developing this latest body of work:

Staying with the trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016) by Donna Haraway
Mushrooms at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (2015) by Anna Tsing
Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq (2017) by Omar Dewachi
Writings by Miriam Ticktin
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) by Gloria Anzaldúa
An Apartment on Uranus: Chronicles of the Crossing (2019) by Paul P. Preciado
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014) by Bessel van der Kolk
My Grandmothers Hands (2021) by Resmaa Menakem 

Browse through the books at The Mosaic Rooms bookshop online and in gallery.

About the artist

Hayv Kahraman is an Iraqi artist based in Los Angeles whose figurative paintings examine the gendered and racialized body politics of migrant consciousness. Her work is a reflection on Otherness as a form of dehumanisation, focusing on the gap between the immigrant, non-white, genderly marked other and the way they are perceived by the white hetero-patriarchal normative same. Her work has been exhibited at ICA Boston, Boston (2020); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2020); De La Warr Pavilion, United Kingdom (2019); Nottingham Contemporary, United Kingdom (2019); Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont (2018); Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) St. Louis, St. Louis (2017); Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (2017); Rubell Museum, Miami (2016); Cantor Arts Center, Stanford (2013) and the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2009). Forthcoming shows include: The Touch of Otherness, The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Savannah (2022) and ICA San Francisco, San Francisco (2023).

Photo by Eric Aydin-Barberini.

In partnership with the Architecture Foundation, The Mosaic Rooms brings together architects, researchers and artists for this series of three panel discussions. The series is part of programme accompanying the exhibition Stateless Heritage by DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti.

Stateless Heritage is the first episode in the series. In this discussion, chaired by DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, speakers Anita Bakshi, Corinna Gardner and Robert Mull, discuss notions of material and immaterial heritage in relation to DAAR’s exhibition Stateless Heritage. They talk about their own research and work at the intersection of architecture and memory, and about collecting in response to rapid transformations and displacement.

In Restoration as Resistance in Palestine, Adrian Lahoud chairs a discussion with  speakers AAU Anastas, Dima Srouji and Dana Abbas to consider how the preservation of cultural heritage is a form of resistance to Israeli settler colonialism. They look at how architecture and urban planning have been used to fragment and erase Palestinian territory and the ongoing work to combat this.

In the final episode Architectural Models & the Refugee Camp DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti speak with Aya Musmar, Wafa Hourani and Stephan Mörsch to discuss the importance of using models that are based on real refugee camps. They look at how these reproductions of architectural realities go beyond the Western modern tradition.

The Architecture Foundation leads the conversation on the development of London and contributes to a global discourse about the architect’s changing role and responsibilities through the delivery of an accessible public programme that makes space for emerging architects, groups historically underrepresented in the profession, and representatives of a wide range of related disciplines. Exploring the architect’s capacity to combat climate change and systemic social inequalities represent central concerns of the programme.

About the speakers

Dana Abbas is an architect and researcher based in Palestine. She is part of Riwaq’s team (Center for Architectural Conservation) since 2018, and is a lead architect in The Life Jacket Project aiming at the revitalisation and development of rural Jerusalem. Dana holds a BA in architectural engineering from Birzeit University and an MA in Research Architecture from Goldsmiths University of London.  More about Dana Abbas

Born into a family of architects, Elias and Yousef Anastas graduated from Paris with Masters in Architecture. They founded Local Industries in 2012, a community of bold artisans and designers dedicated to industrial furniture-making, and SCALES in 2016. More about Elias and Yousef Anastas

Anita Bakshi is the author of Topographies of Memories: A New Poetics of Commemoration (2017, Palgrave Macmillan). She received her PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture from Cambridge University with the Conflict in Cities Research Programme. She teaches at Rutgers University, Department of Landscape Architecture. Her research focuses on contested landscapes and histories, environmental justice, and the relationship between architecture and inequality. More about Anita Bakshi

Corinna Gardner is Senior Curator of Design and Digital at the V&A where she leads the museum’s Rapid Response Collecting programme. Her research focuses on contemporary product and digital design and the role they play in society. Current projects include a new permanent gallery for 20th and 21st century design at the V&A and an exhibition about the promise and problem of plastic today.

DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti – is an architectural collective that combines conceptual speculations and pragmatic spatial interventions, discourse and collective learning. The artistic research of Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti are situated between politics, architecture, art and pedagogy. More about DAAR

Wafa Hourani studied experimental cinema in Tunisia. He works with a variety of media that include film, photography, installation, sculpture, performance, music, and poetry. He lives and works between Ramallah and Amman. In 2021 he collaborated with ICRC and created a model (Blackout) that focuses on the humanitarian and living conditions in the Gaza Strip with the implications of the electricity crisis. More about Wafa Hourani

Adrian Lahoud is an architect, urban designer and researcher as well as Dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art, London, and co-chair of the Rights of Future Generations Working Group. Previously, he was Studio Master at Projective Cities, Architectural Association, London, and Director of the MA in Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London. More about Adrian Lahoud

Stephan Mörsch is an artist with an interest in reconstructing existing architecture on a scale of 1:10. He is primarily concerned with self-organised building activity, such as the refugee settlements, the so-called Jungles, that are constantly being built in the northern French port city of Calais. He taught in the master’s programme Spatial Strategies at the Weissensee School of Art in Berlin from 2011-2018. More about Stephan Mörsch

Robert Mull is Professor of Architecture and Design at the University of Brighton, visiting Professor at Umeå University Sweden and Yasar University Turkey and a director at Publica, an Urban Design practice based in London. Robert was previously Director of Architecture and Dean of The Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design in Aldgate. Robert co-founded the Moscow School of Architecture and now leads the Global Free Unit. More about Robert Mull

Aya Musmar is an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Feminism at The University of Petra in Amman, Jordan. Her transdisciplinary research sits at the confluence of refugee studies, feminist studies and architecture and it aims at contesting the established boundaries of each. She investigates humanitarian response in refugees’ spaces and beyond, thinks of the refugee camp as a spatial phenomenon that embodies world unjust politics. More about Aya Musmar

Dima Srouji is a Palestinian architect exploring the power of the ground, its strata, and its artefacts in revealing silenced narratives and embedded intergenerational memories. Srouji is a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture, and in 2016 she founded Hollow Forms. More about Dima Srouji

Images:

1.Refugee Heritage by DAAR — Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti — Photographic Dossier by Luca Capuano.
2.Refugee Heritage by DAAR — Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti — Photographic Dossier by Luca Capuano.
3.Portrait Anita Bakshi. Courtesy of the portrayed.
4.Portrait Corinna Gardner. Courtesy of the portrayed.
5.Portrait Robert Mull. Courtesy of the portrayed.
6.Portrait Adrian Lahoud. Courtesy of the portrayed.
7.Portrait Dana Abbas. Courtesy of the portrayed.
8.Portrait Dima Srouji. Courtesy of the portrayed.
9.Portrait Wafa Hourani. Courtesy of the portrayed.
10.Portrait Stephan Mörsch. Courtesy of the portrayed.
11.Portrait Aya Musmar

Explore The Mosaic Rooms’ new exhibition Stateless Heritage by DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, with this children’s activity sheet designed by artist Jumana Hokan. Walk through the exhibition, and follow the prompts. Inspired by DAAR’s focus on Dheisheh refugee camp, this art activity invites children and their grown-ups to explore statelessness and heritage in new ways. Pick up your copy on your visit to The Mosaic Rooms.

Image: Detail Activity Sheet. Courtesy of the artist.

The Mosaic Rooms
Opportunity type: Part time
Hours: Wednesday 12pm-4pm
Salary: £11/hr
Start date: 13 October 2021-26 January 2022 (no shifts 22 & 29 Dec)
Location: SW5 0SW, 5 mins from Earls Court tube

About the role
The Host will be responsible for welcoming local refugee and asylum seekers to the Gallery from 1-3pm every Wednesday. The role will be public facing and the host will ensure the gallery space feels welcoming and accommodating to these audiences. The host will introduce people to the space, show them facilities available, help set up refreshments, and be present to help facilitate conversations and answering any queries people may have about the exhibition/Gallery. Working creatively with other members of the team they will also help generate ideas for developing and engaging these audiences. Either Arabic or Farsi as additional languages would be extremely beneficial to the role.

About the project
In The Open Living Room/ Al Madafeh The Mosaic Rooms will host an afternoon session for refugees and asylum seekers who have been placed in local hotels. It is intended that the space will be a welcoming free space for residents to spend time, to visit the gallery, and feel welcome and enjoy free tea/coffee/biscuits. The weekly event will be publicised by local refugee support organisations West London Welcome and RBKC mutual aid group. The weekly event will run for the duration of the exhibition Stateless Heritage.

About The Mosaic Rooms
The Mosaic Rooms are a vibrant non-profit cultural space and bookshop in West London dedicated to supporting and promoting contemporary culture from and about the Arab world and beyond. We do this through our free access contemporary art exhibitions, our multidisciplinary events, artist residencies and learning and engagement programme. We are a project of the A.M. Qattan Foundation, a registered charity number 1029450.

To apply
Please email Rachael Jarvis, Director, at rachael@mosaicrooms.org with your expressions of interest, any relevant experience, languages spoken, and confirming availability.