Maghreb and Middle East Condition Report 2015
Visual Culture in an Age of Global Conflict
The Kamel Lazaar Foundation is pleased to announce that it will stage a 2-day conference at the National Museum of Bardo from the 28-29 May, 2015. This will be the 3rd iteration of the JAOU initiative to be held there and the first international conference at the Museum since the terrorist attacks on Wednesday, 18 March 2015.
Organized in advance of those attacks, the conference has since taken on an additional pertinence in relation to any investigation into the role that culture performs in the personal, social, public, and political discourses that are unfolding across the region. The indiscriminate attacks have further highlighted the susceptibility of culture in an age of global terror, as have the recent destruction of artifacts in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The questions that remain demand exploration and considered responses if we are to not only condemn these attacks but also ensure that culture and civil society will prevail in the face of extremism, violence and indiscriminate killing.
JAOU 2015 will bring together local and international artists, curators, academics, and cultural practitioners to address these concerns and will include, alongside other events, a condition report on visual culture in the Maghreb, an extended series of round table discussions on, respectively, collaborative geographies in an age of global conflict, the future of art institutions in the Middle East, the role of artistic practices in building international relations and local institutions, the use of archives in contemporary art practices, and the historical genealogies that inform performance art in the Middle East.
Confirmed speakers and performers for the event include Sultan Al Qassemi, Lina Attalah, Mohamed Aziza, Saleh Barakat, Syhème Belkhoja, Moncef Ben Moussa, Antonia Carver, Svetlana Costa, Anthony Downey, Aadel Essaadani, Hela Fattoumi, Wassim Ghozlani, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Hiwa K, Tania El Khoury, Amal Khalaf, Lina Lazaar, Kamel Lazaar, Sofiane Ouissi, Mourad Sakli, and Slavs and Tatars.
The conference will also include an accelerated session, hosted by Thinkers and Doers, to enable 4 short-listed cultural entrepreneurs to present projects that promote Arab culture and, in turn, evaluate value its economical, social, educational and environmental footprint.
Alongside the symposium, JOAU will showcase entirely unique, container-based, mobile art exhibition, which will be situated in the heart of Carthage. Curated by Lina Lazaar, this inaugural exhibition will explore the interplay between sacred space, religious ritual, cultural convention, and everyday life. Artists involved in this include Adel Abidin, Rashed Al Shashai, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Mounir Fatmi and Moataz Nasr.
Further events include a series of organized tours of galleries and museums in Tunis, a film premiere, workshops, and books launches, including volume 02 in the Foundation's Visual Culture in the Middle East Series: Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East. The Foundation will also launch a series of new initiatives to support the infrastructural development of cultural institutions across the Maghreb and Middle East.
The attack on the National Museum of Bardo was designed to undermine the nascent democratic model of Tunisia, the country's economy, the voice of its people, and the vibrant culture of the region by targeting innocent people in a museum renowned for its outstanding mosaic collections and exceptional works of art.
This attack will not succeed in achieving those goals.
Fari Bradley and Chris Weaver will conduct interviews with a selection of panelists over the conference for broadcast on arts-music radio station Resonance104.4FM. Daily podcasts will be available to download from the show's webpage.
Listen to an interview with JAOU Founder Lina Lazaar in which she discuses with Fari Bradley the current North African art scene and the origins behind JAOU.
Sign up to the Kamel Lazaar Foundation newsletter to receive more information on the conference and other surrounding events of JAOU Tunis 2015.
Visual Culture in an Age of Global Conflict
Conference Programme
Thursday 28th May
10:00-10:15 Opening Remarks
Kamel Lazaar, President, Kamel Lazaar Foundation (KLF)
Moncef Ben Moussa, Director, National Museum of Bardo
10:15-11:45 Roundtable I: Culture in an Age of Global Conflict
Chair: Ghazi Gherairi, Jurist and Academic, Tunisia
– Alexandre Kazerouni, Research Fellow, Sciences-Po, Paris
– Sultan Al Qassemi, President, Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
– Mohamed Aziza, Chancellor of the World Poetry Academy of Verona (Italy)
Respondent: Anthony Downey, Editor-In-Chief, Ibraaaz and Lina Lazaar, founder of JAOU
11:45 Coffee break
12:00 Key Note I
Aadel Essaadani, Cultural Specialist and Founder of Abattoirs de Casablanca
General States of Culture in Morocco
Responses and questions
12:30 Lunch
13:45 Roundtable II: Maghreb Condition Report I: The Choreographed Body in Tunisian Culture
Chair: Hela Fattoumi, Director of the National Choreographic Centre of Caen, Basse-Normandie
− Oumaima Manaï, dancer and choreographer, Tunis
− Wael Maghni, dancer, Tunis
− Marwen Errouine, choreographer, Tunis
Respondent: Syhème Belkhodja, Founder of Ness el Fenn and Kalimat, Tunis
15:00 Lecture-Performance I
Hiwa K., artist, Berlin
Starting from the Middle
Responses and questions
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Roundtable III: Performing Archives/Archiving Performance: Contemporary Art Practices across the Middle East
Chair: Anthony Downey, Editor-in-Chief, Ibraaz
− Nadia Kaabi-Linke, artist, Berlin
− Tania El Khoury, artist, Beirut
− Héla Ammar, artist, Tunis
− Slavs and Tatars, artists, Berlin
Respondent: Amal Khalaf, Commissioning Editor, Ibraaz, and Hiwa K. artist, Berlin
17:00 End
Friday 29th May
10:00-11:00 Thinkers and Doers: Accelerated Session
Chair: Amandine Lepoutre, Founder, Thinkers and Doers, Paris
5 minute presentations by:
– Leilia Ben-Gacem, Blue Fish
– Anne-Hélène Decaux and Valérie Konde, Pavilion33
– Amine Chouaieb, Chifco
– Alizée Doumerc and Camille Caubriere, GUESTVIEW
– Bobby Demri, GOV.
Respondent: Mourad Sakli, Musicologist and Former Tunisian Minister of Culture, Tunisia
11:00-11:45 Key Note II
Lecture-Performance by Slavs and Tatars
Al Isnad or Chains We Can Believe In
Responses and questions
11:45 Coffee
12:00-13:00 Roundtable IV: Maghreb Condition Report II: Visual Culture in the Maghreb
Chair: Svetlana Costa, Curator and Artistic Director, Arts Cabinet, London
– Anabelle Boissier, Research Associate, LAMES, ParisMourad Sakli, Musicologist and Former Minister of Culture, Tunisia
– Mourad Sakli, Musicologist and Former Minister of Culture, Tunisia
– Wassim Ghozlani, Co-Founder, La Maison De L'Image
– Moncef Dhouib, filmmaker, Tunis
– Hind Meddeb, Filmmaker, Journalist, Director Tunisia Clash
– Rita Alaoui, Founder and Artist, The Ultra Laboratory, Morocco
Respondent: Evangeline Kim, art consultant, Anthony Downey, Editor-In-Chief, Ibraaz.
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:30 Roundtable V: Future Imperfect: Art Institutions in the Arab World
Chair: Sultan Al Qassemi, President, Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
– Saleh Barakat, Director, Agial Gallery, Beirut
– George Arbid, Architect and Founder of Arab Centre for Architecture, Beirut
– Sofiane Ouissi, Co-Founder, Dream City, Tunis
– Lina Attallah, Editor, Mada Masr, Cairo
– Antonia Carver, Fair Director, Art Dubai
Respondent: Svetlana Costa, Curator and Artistic Director, Arts Cabinet, London
15:30-16:15 KLF: Condition Report and Perspectives
– Local Initiatives Supported by KLF, Elsa Despiney
– Launch of Ibraaz Platform 009 and Dissonant Archives by Anthony Downey
– Launch of the Maghreb Directory and Launch of Kamel Lazaar Foundation website Version 2.0, Nour Sacranie and Hydar Dewachi
– Development of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Tunis, Soumaya Gharsallah-Hizem
16:30 Closing Remarks
Lina Lazaar, Founder, JAOU
Speakers' Biographies
Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi is a commentator on Arab affairs and founder of Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah. He is widely recognized for his use of social media and has been described by numerous media outlets as a prominent voice during the events of the ongoing Arab Spring. In February 2014 Sultan Al Qassemi joined the Global Commission on Internet Governance and in the summer of 2014 became an MIT Media Lab Director's Fellow.
George Arbid is an architect, graduate from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts. He holds a doctorate from Harvard University with a thesis on modern architecture in Lebanon. Alongside his teaching position at the American University of Beirut, he heads the Arab Centre for Architecture which is co-founded. The centre aims to document the modern architecture of the Arab world and disseminate the concept of modern heritage. Arbid co-curated the Pavilion of Bahrain at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2014 and published a book for the occasion: Architecture from the Arab World, 1914-2014, a Selection.
Héla Ammar is directly inspired of her daily experiences, her life, of the way she communicates to bring her vision on subjects such as the image and the feminine identity in Arabic Mediterranean cultures. Since 2003, her work has been regularly showcased in Tunisia and abroad. She took part in numerous solo and group shows in Tunisia and abroad (Germany, France and Spain). Her work has been shown in various international art fairs including World Nomads New York 2013, Dream City in 2010 and 2012, Les rencontres photographiques de Bamako 2012, Marrakech Art Fair 2010, ArtDubai 2008, ARTMAR2007, Biennale de Barcelone, Spain 2007, ArtParis-AbuDhabi 2007.
Lina Atallah is editor of Mada Masr. She balances between leading a team of young journalists and being one herself. Always attempting to experiment and break moulds, Lina is known to embrace unconventional story pitches and help develop them into valuable and unique content. As a journalist, her practice has taken her all over the region, often arriving to places at a time that most people are fleeing them.
Mohamed Aziza was born in Tunis. He created and directed the Euro-Arab Itinerant University where he was from 1986 to 1998, the Rector, the World Academy of Poetry in Verona which he is founder and Chancellor MED 21 program - Multidisciplinary Network for Price Promoting Excellence and Cooperation in the Mediterranean which has a dozen spread price in ten Mediterranean countries. Visiting Professor at several European universities, American and Japanese, he is the author of several books analyzing poorly studied aspects of Arab and African cultures and collections of poems and stories translated into several languages and prefaced by great writers from different regions of the world.
Saleh Barakat is a Lebanese art specialist, gallery owner and curator. He studied at the American University of Beirut and runs the Agial Art Gallery in the Ras Beirut area. Barakat deals with works from established Modernist artists from Lebanon and the Arab World. In 2007, he co-curated with Sandra Dagher the 1st Lebanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Barakat has been appointed to manage a museum project at the American University of Beirut.
Syhème Belkhoja is an artist choreographer is Director of three festivals: the Choreographic Meeting of Carthage, the documentary film festival Doc in Tunis and Design & Fashion in Carthage. Having developed a passion for dance very young, she began her career in dance by participating as a choreographer and dancer in popular Tunisian TV shows.
Anabelle Boissier has a PhD in anthropology, and is a research associate at LAMES (CNRS). Her doctoral and post-doctoral research focuses on the role of transnational relations in the development of contemporary art worlds in Thailand and Tunisia. She is co-founder of the research group ARVIMM.
Antonia Carver became Fair Director of Art Dubai in August 2010. Based in the UAE since 2001, she has written extensively-and often on Middle Eastern art and film-as a correspondent for The Art Newspaper and Screen International, among other publications, and edited books and journals. She joined Bidoun as an editor in 2004 and later became the director of the Middle Eastern arts organisation's projects division, co-organising educational programmes, film and video series, the touring Bidoun Library, and artists' commissions and talks, among other projects. Before moving to Dubai in 2001, she was based in London and worked as an editor at Phaidon; in development and projects at the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva); and in publishing at G+B Arts International.
Svetlana Costa is Director of Arts Cabinet, which is currently putting together an exchange programme between cultural institutions and residency spaces in Northern Europe and the Maghreb.
Moncef Dhouib is a Tunisian film director, actor, screenwriter and producer and puppeteer. He is a recipient of the FESPACO award. After making four notable short films in the 1980s he made The Sultan of the City (Soltane El Medina) (1993) and The TV arrives (Talfaza Jaya) (2006).
Anthony Downey is an academic, writer and editor. Recent and upcoming publications include Art and Politics Now (2014); Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East (2015); Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practices in North Africa and the Middle East (2014); Slavs and Tatars: Mirrors for Princes (2015). He is the Director of the Contemporary Art Master's programme at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, and the Editor-in-Chief of Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org). He is currently working on a book on performance art, ethics, and civil society in the Arab world(forthcoming, 2016).
Tania El Khoury is an artist working between London and Beirut. She creates interactive and challenging performances in which the audience is an active collaborator. Tania performed and staged interactive installations in various spaces ranging from the British Museum to the Mediterranean sea, a cable car, a shipping container and an old church in Beirut once used as a military base during the civil war. Her solo work has toured internationally, and for which she is the recipient of the Total Theatre Innovation Award and the Arches Brick Award. Her productions have been presented at Artsadmin, Next Wave Festival, Fierce Festival, Battersea Arts Centre, ICA, Bluecoat, Watermill Art Centre, Tanzquartier Wien, and City of Women amongst others.
Aadel Essaadani was born in Casablanca and is a specialist in urban sociology and culture specialist. He is the former president of the "Fabrique Culturelle des anciens abattoirs de Casablanca" and is now President of Arterial Network, the pan-African network which promotes culture as a factor of human, social and economical development in the African continent.
Hela Fattoumi, born in Tunis, is a French choreographer, a director of the National Choreographic Center of Caen Basse-Normandie and co-founder of the Fattoumi/ Lamoureux Company in, together with Eric Lamoureux. She is a multi-award-winning choreographer who has been internationally hailed as among the leading figures in contemporary dance. She often uses the medium of dance to address political and social issues of great relevance.
Soumaya Gharsallah-Hizem is architect-sociologist, who holds a Ph.D. in Museology, Mediation, Heritage, spouse of the University of Avignon and the University of Quebec in Montreal. She has worked on several museum projects at the National Institute of Heritage before directing the National Museum of Bardo. She is the author of several articles focusing on heritage and Tunisian museums. Since January 2014 she headed the Tunis office of Kamel Lazaar Foundation.
Ghazi Gherairi is a lawyer and academic. He is Secretary-General of the International Academy of Constitutional Law and taught law at the University of Carthage and Diplomatic Institute and the School of Tunis politics. After the Tunisian revolution of 2010, he was a member and spokesperson of the High Council of the Revolution Objectives of Production, Political Reform and Democratic Transition. He also provides support for the constitutional transition in Libya and Yemen.
Wassim Ghozlani is a graphic designer and photographer based in Tunis. After he established himself as a photographer, his work was exhibited in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world, America, Brazil, Mali, and several European countries. Ghozlani currently divides his time between photography-related activities and the coordination and management of Tunisia's photography platform Shutter Party, which he co-founded.
Alexandre Kazerouni is a French political scientist, specialised in Middle Eastern studies and public policy. His is currently a research fellow at Sciences Po, after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford in 2014. His work deals with the cultural dimensions of political change in the Arab world, Turkey and Iran, but also Islamic cultures in the West. His doctoral thesis, defended in 2013 and now in the process of being published, led him research the rise of museums and the birth of a regional art market in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates since the 1950s. His postdoctoral fellowship in California compares Islamic art galleries on the two shores of the Atlantic.
Amal Khalaf is a researcher and curator and currently Projects Curator at the Serpentine Galleries working on the Edgware Road Project, and Commissioning Projects at Ibraaz. With an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, her research addresses themes of urbanism, community, media activism and art through participatory projects, and media initiatives. Previously she has worked for Al Riwaq Gallery, Bahrain and set up a project space in an abandoned railway arch in East London, Hold & Freight (2008-2009).
Nadia Kaabi-Linke was born in Tunis to a Ukrainian mother and Tunisian father and lives currently in Berlin. Her works were exhibited in solo exhibitions in Tunis (2009), Berlin (2010), Dubai (2012) and Kolkata (2013), and in international group exhibitions and institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Nam June Paik Center, Gyeonggi-do (Korea), the Liverpool Biennial, 54th Venice Biennial, 9th Sharjah Biennial.
Evangeline Kim is an independent arts management consultant with programs and projects encompassing international socio-economic development and broadly related cultural programs. She is currently co-producing an international Sufi Culture Festival in partnership with Simon Broughton (UK and Robert Browning Associates (Canada). She has provided advice to UNESCO's Culture Sector to help raise awareness in the U.S. about the sector's activities in preserving world cultural heritages and cultural diversities. She has served as a National Endowment for the Arts selection panel member for the National Heritage Fellowships Awards. She has worked with the Mexican Cultural Institute on projects dealing with cultural diplomacy in the U.S. She has also acted as advisor to several other arts and cultural organizations, including Brazil's Bahia Secretariats of Culture and Tourism and Mali's Festival on the Niger River.
Kamel Lazaar is the Founder and Chairman of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation. As a philanthropist and key supporter of visual arts across the region, he has been responsible for the founding of online and print publishing initiatives, widespread support for exhibitions, international conferences, educational seminars, artists' research projects, and the ongoing development of a visual arts collection. The Foundation is currently developing a number of significant building projects in Tunisia with the goal of developing sustainable forms of cultural dialogue and thought leadership across the region and beyond. Before founding in 1987 Swicorp, a leading investment banking firm in the MENA region, Mr Lazaar was Vice President of Citibank in North Africa and Europe, and was part of the Citibank team that opened the Saudi-American Bank (Samba) in Saudi Arabia. He holds an MBA from the Institut Supérieur de Gestion in Tunis and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Tunis.
Lina Lazaar is Associate Editor of Ibraaz and founder of JAOU. She holds an MA in Statistics, an MA in Art History she is also a specialist at Sotheby's London in Post War and Contemporary Art. Her passion for Arab and Iranian Contemporary Art led Sotheby's to hold their first European auctions in this category in 2007. Since then she has curated sales annually and significantly increased the international exposure and discussion of Middle Eastern contemporary art. Lina is a member of the Middle East North Africa Acquisitions Committee of Tate Modern, London.
Amandine Lepoutre is the founder and CEO of THINKERS & DOERS, defined as a Think & Do Tank. THINKERS & DOERS aims at bringing together those who carry, encourage or sustain scalable, high-impact, innovative driven, and sustainable initiatives that answer to the challenges and the changes Arab societies are currently facing. Dynamic young entrepreneur, Amandine Lepoutre shares her life between Europe and the Middle East. Graduated from Sciences Po Paris and the CELSA, former Head of strategic development at TBWA, she is also the founder and CEO of La Société Anonyme, an innovative communication agency (L'Oréal, Rolex, Lagardère, SoHouse, Royal Monceau…), as well as founder and President of AhAhAh!, the first network of creative forces such as designers, architects, artists, cultural entrepreneurs and musicians.
Riccarda Mandrini is a journalist of 'art economy 24', the art market supplement of the Italian economic and financial newspaper 'il sole 24 ore'. Mandrini is a teacher at the Business School of 'il sole 24 ore' in the Master Programme of 'Economia e Management dell'Arte e dei Beni Culturali' in Rome. She has been curator of the Conversations of Arte Fiera Bologna. She lectures frequently for the Educational Programme of Musei Civici of Pavia, the town where she lives.
Frédéric Mitterrand is a French and Tunisian citizen and is a former French Minister of Culture and Communication. Throughout his career, he has been an actor, screenwriter, television presenter, writer, producer and director.
Sofiane and Selma Ouissi is a brother and sister duo at the centre of the current Arab dance scene. They have been performing and creating choreographies together since the beginning of their careers. Their last piece, Here(s), is a dance performance using Skype as creative tool, with Yacine Sebti assisting in the software and interactive installation.
Slavs and Tatars Founded in 2006, Slavs and Tatars is a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. The collective's work spans several media, disciplines, and a broad spectrum of cultural registers (high and low) focusing on an oft-forgotten sphere of influence between Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians. They have exhibited in major institutions across the Middle East, Europe and North America, including the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, MoMA, 10th Sharjah, 8th Berlin, Dallas Museum of Art, Kunsthalle Zurich and NYUAB Art Gallery. Slavs and Tatars have published several books, including Kidnapping Mountains (Book Works, 2009), Love Me, Love Me Not: Changed Names (onestar press, 2010), Not Moscow Not Mecca (Revolver/Secession, 2012), Khhhhhhh (Mousse/Moravia Gallery, 2012), Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi'ite Showbiz (Book Works, 2013) as well as their translation of the legendary Azeri satire Molla Nasreddin: the magazine that would've, could've, should've (JRP|Ringier, 2011) and Mirrors for Princes (NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery and JRP-Ringier, 2015). Slavs and Tatars are nominated for the 2015 Nationalgalerie Preis.
Mourad Sakli is a Tunisian academic, festival director, composer and politician. He has been Tunisia's minister of culture since January 2014. He has a degree BA in mathematics and a Masters degree in music from the Tunis Higher Institute of Music.
Thinkers and Doers: Project Holders
Lilia Ben-Gacem, Blue Fish
Blue Fish is a company helping cultures thrive by empowering people to be proud of their heritage. Leila Ben-Gacem is leading the project and lives in Tunis. She has held a business registration in Tunis since January 2006
Anne-Hélèn Decaux and Valérie Konde, Pavillion33
Pavillion33 is a 3.0 art gallery. The project is led by two young entrepreneurs Anne-Hélène Decaux and Valérie Konde. Anne-Hélène is based in Paris and Valérie in Abu Dhabi. Pavillon 33 is a comprehensive online platform promoting and selling art from Africa and the Middle East.
Amine Chouaieb, Chifco
Chifco is a Tunisian start-up created in 2011 and specialized in the Internet of Things (IoT) to highlight the need to put innovation and technology at the heart of day-to-day activities in Tunisia and beyond. The project is led by Amine Chouaieb, a young Tunisian entrepreneur and graduate from ESCP. He developed Chifco in order to enhance Tunisia's know-how and IT competencies.
Alizée Doumerc and Camille Caubriere, GUESTVIEW
GUESTVIEW is a French project reinventing the relationship between cultural institutions and their visitors and accompany cultural institutions in the management of their relationships. The project is led by two young entrepreneurs, Alizée Doumerc and Camille Caubrière, who have developed a project dedicated to the National Museum of Bardo.
Bobby Demri, GOV.
GOV. is a mobile application and a tool to create surveys and polls, enabling citizens to rate politicians from their country and thus participate in the political and democratic development of their country. The project is led by Franco-Tunisian Bobby Demri.
Six Pillars
Broadcasting up to and during the symposium, Six Pillars is a weekly radio show on London's arts-music radio station Resonance104.4FM Fari Bradley and Chris Weaver speak to conveners, speakers and performers from the festival for Six Pillars.
See the schedule and listen back online on www.sixpillars.org/jaou-tunis-2015 or on air in London on 104.4FM
