3/11/15

The Revolution within the Revolution: Art and Syria Today

Read the latest post from our guest blogger Aimee Dawson, for a broad overview and initial insight for those wanting to begin to know about art in Syria today:

In 2011, a small piece of graffiti demanding the fall of the Syrian regime instigated a vicious crackdown by the government upon its young perpetrators. This graffiti was arguably one of the catalysts that led to the Syrian Revolution, which has since deteriorated into the now four-year-long civil war. It is somewhat fitting then that today, the cultural and artistic responses in the war-torn country have been described as the only positive development of the conflict. Despite the widespread devastation – which has seen over 230,000 people killed, more than 4 million fleeing as refugees, and almost 8 million internally displaced[1] – Syrians have been responding to and documenting their crisis creatively, taking advantage of greater freedom of expression of an essentially collapsed state (compared to the fierce censorship that reigned during Assad’s unchallenged rule). That is not to say that artists are free from the repercussions of their work – many artists have been forced out of work, threatened, beaten, imprisoned, forced to leave the country or, in some cases, killed[2]. In spite of the danger, and beyond the sounds of shelling and bombardments that try to drown them out, many artists both inside and outside the country continue to battle against tyranny to make their voices, and those of the Syrian people, heard.

‘Bring down Bashar’ graffiti. Courtesy Jan Sefti, https://www.flickr.com/photos/8605011@N02/5614565122

Throwing out the rulebook

Marginal forms of artistic practice are taking on new agency in Syria; the boundary between art, politics and active citizenship is becoming increasingly fluid; and the Internet is providing a platform for expression and dissemination. Popularised art forms include graffiti, community interventions, graphic design, cartoons, comics and puppetry. These forms of visual communication work seamlessly alongside acts of protest and resistance – they are quick, simple and impactful, and carry the message of dissent.

Ali Ferzat is one of Syria’s best-known political cartoonists and has been publishing subtly subversive cartoons for decades in state-run newspapers such as Al Thawra (The Revolution). Since 2011, Ferzat’s cartoons have become less symbolic and more blatant in their derision of the state. A (likely government-organised) attack, in which he was beaten and both of his hands were broken, lead him to flee to Kuwait. He continues to produce images, whilst many more cartoonists and comic artists have risen to prominence. Comic4Syria are a group of artists who publish comics on their Facebook page that respond to the brutality of state-sponsored groups and tell everyday stories of resistance. Their comic strips act as a vent for the frustrations of the local public and offers insight for foreign audiences, for whom they write in English, into the conflict on the ground.

Comic4Syria – Chase. https://informationactivism.org/en/stories/minnesotascreening

Increasingly, online platforms and social media have played a large role in making such art visible, which, considering the rapidly displaced population and growth of international solidarity, is an important tool for Syrian resistance. Many groups and collectives are using the Internet to disseminate their works and create a virtual community of support. Groups such as the Alshaab alsori aref tarekh (The Syrian People Know Their Way) collective produce striking posters and banners that can be downloaded and printed from social media sites to be used anywhere in the world[3], and which were employed heavily in protests throughout Syria in 2011. Another initiative, Art and Freedom (arte.liberte.syrie), uses a Facebook page as a symbolic artistic space for solidarity, allowing artists to post their work online in exchange for signing their names to show their support for the revolution.

Satire: dark humour for dark times

Alongside these artistic forms, satire emerges as one of the central threads running through the art being produced in and about Syria today[4]. Satire and mockery have long been a part of the cultural creativity in the country, as can be seen in the poems and plays of Mohammed Al-Maghout in the 1970s[5] and Ali Ferzat’s early anti-regime cartoons. One anonymous Syrian communication expert argues that the success and potency of satire in art lies in its ability to catch the regime and military off-guard: ‘They know how to play when arms are involved, but do not know how to react to mash-ups, parodies and irony’[6]. For the artists and citizens themselves, such art also acts as a reprise from the horrors and atrocities of daily life and as a space where people can feel a sense of control and autonomy. A member of Masasit Mati also argues that people need to ‘laugh and enjoy things’ in order to exist and that this retained sense of humour by the Syrians ‘shows us their strength and their determination to not just see themselves as victims’[7].

Top Goon puppets, by Masasit Mati. http://www.masasitmati.org

Masasit Mati is an anonymous art collective who use puppetry to ridicule both state and oppositional groups, which has risen to prominence as one of the most internationally popular creative enterprises to come out of the Syrian Revolution. The collective, who use the traditional Syrian art of puppetry, have now released three series of their satirical puppet videos Top Goon and have been viewed by thousands on their Facebook and YouTube sites. In 2013, the group took to the Syrian streets to bring puppetry back to the people, saying that despite the importance of the Internet in their art and message, they don’t want to be disconnected from the public on the ground. Unfortunately, increased shelling and attacks have forced them back into the confines of the digital world.

Satire has also taken on a performative guise in protests that adopt artistic elements. Such interventions include an incident where the seven main fountains of Damascus were dyed red, to represent the state’s killing of thousands of civilians. One of the fountains is located directly in front of Syria’s intelligence service headquarters; the dramatic red water symbolised both the state’s cruelty and their weakness, despite their military power, to prevent such actions.

Red fountains in Damascus. http://www.everydayrebellion.net/blood-fountains-against-the-civil-war-2/

Similarly, activist Ahmed Zaino released hundreds of ping-pong balls featuring the word hurriyah (Arabic for ‘freedom’) into the streets of Damascus, after which security forces helplessly chased, with some balls rolling into the grounds of Bashar al-Assad’s palace[8]. At times when the security forces attempted to prevent such interventions, artists and activists have responded imaginatively – when regime checkpoints prevented people from demonstrating around the infamous Clock Tower Square in Homs, people created their own miniature clock towers and protested around them instead.[9] These acts of creative subversion construct a physical space that the protestors can inhabit as well as highlighting glimmers of state weakness and futility.

The artistic production coming from and about Syria is monumental in all meanings of the word – in quantity, scope, and form but also in courage and resilience. The cultural outpouring since the 2011 revolution has created a legacy that cannot be erased as easily as the bombed-out cities and contested territories of Syria itself. What started as a political revolution has created a cultural revolution of sorts – a space that allows for greater freedom of expression and an urgent and constant topic of inspiration.

–

For more information on the arts and culture of Syria see: Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, eds. Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen and Nawara Mahfoud (London: Saqi Books, 2014).

Aimee Dawson is a London-based writer and blogger on contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa. She studied Arabic and Middle East Studies at the University of Exeter and spent a year living and studying in Cairo and Fez. She was the writer-in-residence for Shubbak Festival 2015, is a guest blogger for Nour Festival of Arts 2015, is the Editorial Assistant at Ibraaz.org, and the Editorial Intern at The Arts Newspaper. She has recently completed her Masters in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. @amldawson

[1] ‘Syria’s Artists: Between Freedom and Tyranny’, The Syrian Observer, 24 June 2015, http://syrianobserver.com/EN/Features/29391/Syria_Artists_Between_Freedom_Tyranny
[2] Ibid.
[3] Malu Halasa, ‘Art of Resistance’, Index on Censorship, September 2012, 41:3, pp. 141-152.
[4] Malu Halasa (ed.), Culture in Definance: Continuing Traditions of Satire, Art, and the Struggle for Freedom in Syria (Amsterdam: Prince Claus Fund Gallery, 2012), http://www.princeclausfund.org/files/docs/2012%20Culture%20in%20Defiance.pdf
[5] Eyad N. Al-Samman, ‘Mohammed Ahmed Al-Maghout, the Syrian poet with a satiric pen’, The Yemen Times, 2009 http://www.arabworldbooks.com/Readers2009/articles/maghut_alsamman.htm
[6] Donatella Della Ratta, ‘Irony, Satire, and Humor in the Battle for Syria’, Muftah, 23 February 2012, http://muftah.org/irony-satire-and-humor-in-the-battle-for-syria/#.Vic8XxArJ0t
[7] Aimee Dawson, ‘Holding up a Mirror to the International Community: An Interview with Masasit Mati of Top Goon’, Shubbak Festival blog, 15 July 2015, http://www.shubbak.co.uk/holding-up-a-mirror-to-the-international-community-an-interview-with-massasit-mati-of-top-goon/
[8] ‘Syrian Activist Ahmed Fights With Ping Pong Balls’, Everyday Rebellion, http://www.everydayrebellion.net/tag/ahmed-zaino/
[9] Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline, eds. Malu Halasa, Zaher Omareen and Nawara Mahfoud (London: Saqi Books, 2014).

20/10/15

Q&A with artist Massinissa Selmani – our current Mosaic Rooms studio resident

Q1/ Please can you introduce yourself, and tell us where people may have previously encountered your work in the UK?

I was born in Algiers, but now live and work in France. In general, my practice is an experimentation of drawing. I’m interested in documentary forms and newspaper clippings that I explore through drawing.

My first exhibition in the UK was at The Mosaic Rooms in 2014. This was a mixed media group show with myself and five other Algerian artists. I presented installation Diar Echems (Maisons du soleil) (2013-2014), a work inspired by the overcrowded neighbourhood of Diar Echems in Algiers, which is known for the riots that took place in protest against squalid housing conditions. The piece considered the development of a slum on the site of an adjacent football pitch, and the new social and spatial order this created.

installation Diar Echems (Maisons du soleil) by Massinissa Selmani

Q2/ You recently took part in London’s 1:54 art fair. What did you do there?

During the 1:54, I presented drawings and took part in the artists talks. I was in conversation with Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation

Q3/ You have been busy since your exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms, can you tell us about some of your recent activities/shows and any upcoming projects?

After the Mosaic Rooms, I was selected for Dakar Biennale. A few months later, I was invited by Okwui Onwezor to the Venice biennale 2015:

Then I was invited by Ralph Rugoff to the Lyon biennale, where I also did a residency with Veduta platform as a partner of the biennale. I also did a residency in Mexico in lithography studio.

In addition to this, I have taken part in some group exhibitions and arts fairs and a solo show at the Centre de Création Contemporaine Olivier Debré in France.

Actually, I’m working on an experimental animated short film and working on new projects experimenting with drawing. I will also publish my first Monography (in ibook format) soon, with Naima Editions in France.

1/10/15

Destruction and Creativity: ISIS, Artefacts and Art in the Middle East

Widespread outrage. National and international mourning. History redefined. These are the terms used to describe the destruction caused by Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) who, since bursting into the international limelight by capturing Mosul in June 2014, have made acts of iconoclasm – the purposeful destruction and defacement of art and artefacts – key to their strategy of inducing fear, exerting power, and garnering support. The Temple of Baalshamin and the funeral towers in Palmyra, which both date back almost 2,000 years, are the latest targets in ISIS’s increasingly widespread and rapidly growing attack on history that now includes ancient sites in Nimrud, Hatra and Mosul in Iraq and Aleppo and Palmyra in Syria. These acts are constantly discussed in terms of Islamic fundamentalism and the ultimate loss and waste of human history– but is there more to iconoclasm than these reductionist portrayals?

ISIS destroying artefacts in Mosul Museum. www.theguardian.com

ISIS, Iconoclasm and the Media

Since June 2014, ISIS’s iconoclastic rampages have become regular features of news articles and broadcasts. But beyond this current media frenzy is a legacy of mediatisation of such iconoclasm. Another infamous example that garnered similar global outrage and attention was the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001. The Financial Times has also created a portfolio of recent iconoclasm, entitled ‘Artefacts Under Attack’, on their website covering Islamic extremist groups that have destroyed objects in Iraq, Syria, Mali, Egypt, Afghanistan and Libya. This mediatisation of the iconoclasm performed by ISIS and other Islamist groups has created an association that presents such destruction as inextricably linked to Islam, and vice versa. The lack of media coverage of any other form of iconoclasm, or any other brand of perpetrator or motive other than Islamic fundamentalism, further solidifies this association.

This presentation by the media misrepresents iconoclasm – it is not a purely Islamic, or religious, practice and it is not a new phenomenon. In fact, iconoclasm can be found in cultures across the world and throughout all time periods – even in the UK. The pervasiveness of iconoclasm as a practice lies in its signification: It is a symbolic visualisation of a challenge to or change of power. This was captured brilliantly in the Tate’s exhibition Art Under Attack (2013–2014), which showed the remains or documentation of iconoclastic acts in Britain or by the British, ranging from the 16th Century to today. The show included religiously inspired attacks on objects, such as during the Protestant Reformation; politically and socially motivated attacks such as those conducted by British Suffragettes; and contemporary iconoclastic acts that sought to challenge post-modern aesthetics.

Creativity Born from Destruction – Contemporary Responses to Iconoclasm

Whilst iconoclasm is understandably distressing and should be discouraged and prevented wherever possible, there is another side to such destruction. As renowned visual culture theorist W.J.T. Mitchell explains: “Iconoclasm is more than just the destruction of images; it is a ‘creative destruction’.” By this, Mitchell is discussing the layers of meaning that are added to an object each time it is modified in any way – even if that modification is destructive. But there is yet more creativity to be found in the inspirational qualities of iconoclastic practice – after declaring outrage and even experiencing a phase of mourning, people have an overwhelming desire to produce material responses. Artists are drawn to the destructive practices of iconoclasm both in terms of materiality and conceptuality. For some, their creativity is an act of memory, preservation and positive production; an act of nostalgia, mourning and a filling of a void; or an act of determination and defiance in the face of hostility and threat: more often than not it is a combination of all three and more besides.

Creative responses to destruction in the Middle East abound in the art world and, in particular, new technologies are rapidly becoming integral to such reflections. One of the most recent examples, which was well documented in the media, is the Bamiyan Buddha hologram created by Chinese couple Janson Yu and Liyan Hu in June 2015. The pair created and self-funded a projector at a reported cost of $120,000, travelled to Bamiyan to show the hologram, and then gifted the device to the Afghani government for future audiences to enjoy. This project went some way to restoring cultural patrimony and filling the physical, emotional and symbolic void left by the Taliban’s destruction.

Bamiyan Buddha hologram www.ibtimes.co.uk

Another example is Project Mosul who, in response to the iconoclastic acts of ISIS, are using virtual 3D modelling to recreate artefacts destroyed in Syria and Iraq. Project Mosul, a volunteer initiative based in 10 different European cities, is using crowd-funded images to create virtual 3D models of destroyed Iraqi artefacts in the hope of creating an online museum accessible to all. This method of recreation has also been taken up by The Institute for Digital Archaeology, a joint venture between Harvard and Oxford Universities, which is sending thousands of 3D digital cameras to parts of the Middle East where buildings and artefacts are considered ‘high-risk’ so that locals can capture their visual details. Such efforts bring back a sense of agency to those whose heritage is being destroyed and helps keep the objects and their meanings alive.

Project Mosul’s online 3D gallery

Iranian-born artist Morehshin Allahyari is also utilising new technologies, choosing to reproduce artefacts destroyed by ISIS through 3D printing. Her project Material Speculation: ISIS (2015) has involved extensive meticulous research into the destroyed objects, which she found to be heavily under-documented, and then producing the resin copies based on the information she uncovered. Her work is particularly interesting due to the combination of the virtual and the physical – each of her 3D printed sculptures holds a USB drive and memory card containing images, maps, PDF files, and videos from her research into the object. For Allahyari’s replicas it is almost as if the objects themselves have a memory built in and her work is a clear response to a widely-held desire to make historical objects somehow ‘future proof’ – to remove the possibility for forces such as ISIS to wipe out historical narratives and differing views, consolidating their power.

Material Speculation: ISIS (2015), King Uthal and Lamassu

Material Speculation: ISIS (2015), King Uthal and Lamassu

These examples of contemporary art inspired by iconoclastic acts show how iconoclasm is part of a process of visual development. Beyond the horrors of destruction, artistic reflection on iconoclasm is developing our understanding of what art is, its purpose, and how it can ultimately further our understanding of collective memory, history and society. In this way, artists are performing important roles as archivists, mediators, and producers in the contentious act of iconoclasm. Innovative technologies, such as 3D printing, holograms and 3D virtual imagery are increasingly featured in contemporary art and bring new propositions and capabilities in the reinterpretation of destroyed artefacts and images. Whilst the future of historic Middle Eastern images and artefacts is uncertain, and new acts of destruction can be found in the news on an almost daily basis, it can be of some comfort to know that iconoclasm is inspiring new creativity and understanding for our contemporary world.

This blog post is based on a wider research project conducted for Aimee’s MA on Contemporary Art of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

Previous Mosaic Rooms events relevant to this subject include: Recorded Lecture: My House in Damascus

Aimee Dawson is a London-based writer and blogger on contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa. She studied Arabic and Middle East Studies at the University of Exeter and spent a year living and studying in Cairo and Fez. She was the writer-in-residence for Shubbak Festival 2015, is a guest blogger for Nour Festival of Arts 2015, and is the Editorial Assistant at Ibraaz.org. She has recently completed her Masters in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

29/09/15

Q&A with artist Jumana Manna

“I chose not to emphasise borders, in terms of what is Palestinian territory and what is Israel. Lachmann’s radio programme took place before the partition of Palestine. I thought of Lachmann’s program as radio waves spilling out across a territory, defining a certain polity, and participating in shaping the territory. In a sense, when making the film, I physically follow those waves.” (Jumana Manna)

Artist Jumana Manna discusses the work in her current exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery. Read the full interview here.

Jumana Manna is a previous winner of the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.

Her exhibition at Chisenhale gallery is supported by the A.M. Qattan Foundation and The Mosaic Rooms, and is on show until 13 December 2015.

17/09/15

News: Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour to present work at The Mosaic Rooms in 2016

Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour is busy. She is currently working away on an exciting new film project which will be shown at her first London solo exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms in May 2016.

In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain is a science fiction short film inspired by the politicised archaeology carried out in present day Israel/Palestine. Produced in a mixture of colour and black/white it combines live motion, CGI and archival photographs to explore the role of myth and fiction for fact, history and national identity.

The film, which will be approximately 28 minutes long, is in production at the moment, and the artist has just finished the shoot. We thought we’d share some behind the scenes shots:

Born in Jerusalem, Larissa Sansour studied Fine Art in Copenhagen, London and New York. Her work is interdisciplinary, immersed in the current political dialogue and utilises video, photography, installation and sculpture. She has shown work at the Istanbul and Liverpool biennials and at Tate Modern, London; Brooklyn Museum, NYC and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among others.

The Mosaic Rooms is delighted to be one of the supporters of this ambitious film project. We will be posting behind the scenes updates here as the project develops – so make sure to check back!

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