Friday 22 October, 2010

Artists and curators consider the causes and impact of the flourishing cultural dialogues happening with artists from the Middle East . Speakers include Oreet Ashery, Artist, Sacha Cradock, critic and curator, Reem Fadda, Associate Curator of Middle Eastern Art for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, Adalet Garmiany, Director, Artrole, Eva Langret, Programme Manager & Curator and Aaron Cezar, Director,  Delfina Foundation, and SamarMartha, ArtSchool Palestine.

In association with Visiting Arts.


PROGRAMME

3pm: Welcome: Visiting Arts

3.15-3.30pm: Eva Langret, Programme Manager & Curator and Aaron Cezar, Director,  Delfina Foundation present a UK perspective. 
As one of the only foundations in the UK specifically working with the Middle East, Delfina Foundation will explore the benefits and impacts this has had on the Foundation, and its audience. 

3.30 – 3.45pm: Adalet Garmiany, Director, Artrole.
Artrole is a UK-based contemporary arts organisation developing international cultural exchanges with the Middle East.
As Adalet returns home to establish Artrole in Iraq Kurdistan, he will explain how the cultural discourse he has encountered in the UK has enabled critical dialogue with the Middle East, and the impact of this on the future.    

3.45 – 4pm: Samar Martha, Director of ArtSchool Palestine presents an international perspective.
Art School Palestine is a non-profit organisation established in 2005 by a group of art professionals, curators and artists based in Palestine and London.  It aims to facilitate the development and promotion of contemporary Palestinian art.
Samar will consider her role as curator working with both artists who look to the Middle East for inspiration, and those who are working and practicing in the region.

4.00 - 4.15 - Oreet Ashery, Artist.
Oreet will discuss  two pieces - one  is a collaboration with Larissa Sansour, and  sits within a context of Palestinian - Israeli  conflict. The other is a project call Semitic Score, and involves a project working with Muslim contemporary dancers.
This work raises questions about how the West perceive the Middle East, and looks deeper into how artists from the Middle East carry their aesthetic heritage with them in the diaspora and how this manifests in western contexts

4.15 – 4.30pm - Reem Fadda, Associate Curator of Middle Eastern Art for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project

4.30 – 5.00 Discussion chaired by Sacha Cradock, critic and curator.  


BIOGRAPHIES

Reem Fadda is a curator and art historian. Fadda was Director of the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art (PACA) between 2005-07 and worked as Academic Director to the International Academy of Art – Palestine, which she helped found in 2006. She co-curated and had been involved in many projects such as Liminal Spaces, Ramallah Syndrome, "Tarjama/Translation", and the 3rd RIWAQ Biennale. Fadda was granted a Fulbright scholarship to pursue her PhD in History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University. She is currently Associate Curator of Middle Eastern Art for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project.

Oreet Ashery is a London based, interdisciplinary visual artist. Ashery’s practice engages with socio-political paradigms and tends to include participatory and delegated elements. Interested in notions of subjectivity and authenticity, Ashery will frequently produce work as a male character. Those have included an orthodox Jewish man, an Arab man, a black man, a Norwegian postman, a large farmer and most recently a false messiah. Ashery exhibits, performs, intervenes and screens her work extensively in an international context, both in highly established art contexts, as well as in highly experimental public spaces or situations.

Aaron Cezar, The Delfina Foundation, Director,  is a creative producer with first degrees in Economics and Dance from Princeton University and a postgraduate degree in the Creative Industries from King’s College. In New York, he practiced as a management consultant and also as a dancer. In the UK, Aaron worked for the Greenwich Theatre, The Place, Hip Dance Festival and many independent artists before joining Metal, the artistic laboratory space founded by Jude Kelly OBE. As Project Director and then Managing Director of Metal's arts-based consultancy, he managed residencies, creative projects and festivals in London and Liverpool with international artists and thinkers. Whilst at Metal, Aaron was also seconded to London 2012 to manage special projects. Aaron remains involved with Metal as an Associate.

Adalet R. Garmiany is a Kurdish Iraqi artist, curator and Chief Executive of ArtRole, a UK and Iraqi based contemporary arts organization developing international cultural exchanges with the Middle East . Adalet has been forging important cultural and artistic relationships between Iraq , UK , USA , and other countries facilitating artistic dialogue, exchange and mutual support.

Eva Langret is a Curator and Arts Manager at the Delfina Foundation, Eva holds a BA in Economics from Universite Paris Dauphine, an MA in Arts Management from L'Institut d'Etudes Superieures des Art, Paris, and an MA in Art History from SOAS, University of London. She started her career at la FIAC and Galerie les Singuliers, Paris, before joining 198, London, in 2005. As a curator at 198, she redefined the curatorial ethos of the space and supported numerous emerging artists forge a career in the UK and abroad.

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