What’s On
We cordially invite you to explore the upcoming events and programs below,
subscribe to our newsletter for updates on upcoming news and events, and be part of a connected community!
Join Our Newsletter
September – October 2024
2nd Biennial of Resilience, Art & Landscape (AsinaraLab024)
Sardinia, Italy
It´s a pleasure to be invited by LWCircus to contribute to the 2nd Edition of the Biennial of Resilience, Art & Landscape (AsinaraLab024) in Sardinia, Italy.
AsinaraLab024 is an international, multicultural, and multidisciplinary creative community that will test in the field shared practices by using multimedia languages, artistic approaches, and performative attitudes in the specific natural context, with the direct involvement of local actors and public institutions, looking for a resilient and inclusive future for the island, in terms of responsible cultural activity and sustainable development for the local community and the diverse minorities directly involved in each step of the operative shared process.
LWCircus is the Italian-Mexican Operative Shared Program established in 2016. It focuses on developing sustainable urban and rural areas, particularly in sensitive natural areas and transitioning territories, while emphasizing the responsible appreciation of cultural landscapes in the Mediterranean and developing countries.
Confluencing: Chapter I
Selected Artists
Sumac Space and hinterland are thrilled to announce the selected artists for the first chapter of Confluencing. Our open call, which sought to explore contemporary urgencies within the socio-political context of the region, received an inspiring range of submissions. We extend our gratitude to all who submitted their work. The selection process through over 250 submissions was highly competitive, and we commend all participants for their commitment.
Our esteemed jury members, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Dr. Nat Muller, and Angelika Stepken selected the following artists:
Abbas Zahedi
Agil Abdullayev
Fatemeh Sayyah
Helena Tahir
Huseyin Aksoy
İpek Çınar / Ece Gökalp
Mina Nasr
Reyhaneh Mirjahani
Shahrzad Darafsheh
Yaqeen Yamani
Yasmin Noorbakhsh
ZînKolektif
We are excited to present these artists’ works in Berlin and/or at hinterland, Vienna, throughout 2024 and 2025. We invite you to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Instagram for upcoming news and events updates.
Sumac Space in collaboration with M.A. Raumstrategien Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and Vereinigung für genreverbindende Kunstprojekte
Mind or Mend the Gap
Group Exhibition and Live Interventions
with Amanda Bobadilla, Bianca Lee, Emma Lang, Nischal Khadka, Xiao Zhang, xindi
Coordinated by Dr. Marianna Liosi
Opening: June 23, 2024; 12 am
On View: June 24 – 26; 11 am – 9 pm
Donaustraße 84,
12043 Neukölln, Berlin
In this porous world, gaps form and dissolve as cracks between cliffs, spaces between words, or air currents weave through our lives, revealing hidden possibilities and challenges. “Mind the gap,” a warning creates a certain exclamation, “Mend the gap,” a care, sews common or individual wounds.
In the exhibition Mind or Mend the Gap, artists from M.A. Raumstrategien at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee showcase their works in the seminar Mobilizations (SuSe2024), held by Dr. Marianna Liosi. Within this framework, they focus on the transformative potential of affect and empathy as tools for individual or collective mobilization online and offline.
Through their works, artists aim to pay attention, search, and focus on those potential leakages as spaces of expression: to be filled, to perfect, to create a new–or, if not, then to traverse their inevitable presence. In the exhibition “Mind or Mend the Gap,” the sounds of hesitation or screams echo in the gap of our throats, memory, and desire intertwine and sway, tradition and contemporaneity coalesce, and infinite maps and dialogues extend through the gaps. The intertwining of emotions and the belief in the power of each small existence ignites a sense of urgency within us, for gaps always exist.
A series of online interventions will be shown over the upcoming weeks on the Sumac Space digital platform to reflect on the digital space, its challenges, limits, and opportunities. These artistic and spatial experimentations will link to and integrate with the Rundgang on the 20th and 21st of July at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee.
Mon, June 10, 7 – 9 pm
Donaustraße 84,
12043 Neukölln, Berlin
Join us for the presentation and conversation with artist Elham Bayati
Join Sumac Space for a presentation and conversation over a glass of wine with Iranian artist Elham Bayati, who is visiting Berlin; facilitated by Miranda Holmes, who is a US-based artist, and is currently in Berlin on a DAAD Postgraduate Fellowship in the Arts
Elham Bayati, based in Columbus, Ohio, and New York City, skillfully merges her Iranian heritage with Western influences. With a BFA and MA from Tehran, Iran, and an MFA from the Columbus College of Art, Bayati’s work intricately weaves her feminine experiences into floral motifs. These elements evoke poignant memories of her grandmother’s scarf and her mother’s dress fabrics, symbolizing tranquility amid the complexities of contemporary Iran. Her creations, characterized by layers of fabric, collages, and drawings, reflect a rich multicultural narrative featuring evocative representations of women and nostalgic objects.
Miranda Holmes, currently in Berlin on a DAAD Postgraduate Fellowship in the Arts, will facilitate the conversation. Holmes’ figurative paintings and drawings explore expansive notions of identity through the lens of embodied experiences, making her the perfect interlocutor for this engaging dialogue.
Open Call for Artists, Curators, and Research Bodies
Confluencing: Chapter I
Sumac Space–Art Practices of the Middle East in collaboration with hinterland invites artists, curators, and research bodies who address contemporary urgencies in the context of the challenging socio-political circumstances of the region to submit their work and projects for exhibition in Berlin or/and in Vienna.
September 13 – 17, 2023
GENERATIVE ENCOUNTERS–A FIVE-DAY CREATION AND RECIPROCITY
A project by Vereinigung für genreverbindende Kunstprojekte in collaboration with Sumac Space
Conceived by Amelie Conrad / Davood Madadpoor
Donaustraße 84, 12043
Neukölln, Berlin
We cordially invite you and your friends to the 𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 – 𝗔 𝗙𝗜𝗩𝗘-𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝗖𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗬. The program starts with the opening of two group exhibitions, followed by a live music performance on September 13 at 7 pm. The program expands over 4 days with a meet up, book presentation, training workshop on Science Fictionality, panel discussion, film screening, artist talk, and a culinary event.
Check the link below to explore the whole program with details and we hope to see you at Donaustraße 84, 12043 Neukölln, Berlin.
September 13 – 17, 2023
Home, Home, Home, Temporary Home
Parisa Aminolahi, Vooria Aria, Fatih Aydogdu, Christine Kettaneh, Siavash Naghshbandi, Anahita Razmi, Sara Sallam
Curated by Davood Madadpoor
Donaustraße 84, 12043
Neukölln, Berlin
Home, home, home. Temporary home, sublet home. Place with stuff that isn’t mine. I don’t know the contents of the boxes under the bed in which I sleep. I didn’t buy the sheets I use every night. The cat I share the bed with doesn’t know my name. Home, home, home. I get home. Claudia Pagès
The concept of the exhibition is rooted in my continual encounters with change and transformation experienced through my stay in Europe. It began in August 2013, ten years ago, when I settled in a part of Italy, not as a local but as a voyager. After a decade of living in Italy, I decided to embrace a new challenge that involves building a home that holds both physical significance and sentimental value—a place where my dreams can take root and live on. To me, the intent of building a home considers the material structures, the intangible experiences and aspirations for the future.
The exhibition looks at the heavy connotations of “home”, looking at wider socio-political considerations and creating a constructed realm. This realm, perhaps, can only take shape in imagination. A place where constant changes and the swift passage of time have taken the place of contemplation, changes that not only render the concept of time unintelligible but also compel you to ask questions—questions that you carry even within the soil and structure of your home.
The title is borrowed from Claudia Pagès’s book Rage, Home & Insults.
Open Call
Science Fictionality: Training Workshop
by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (CoFUTURES)
September 14 – 16, 2023
9:30 – 14:30
Donaustraße 84, 12043 Neukölln, Berlin
Participation is free. To do so, kindly email contact@sumac.space with the subject line “Training Workshop.” In the email, please include a brief description of your interest in the workshop topic, along with your relevant experience and personal background.
The CoFUTURES workshops are multi-day training sessions that train participants in worldbuilding, speculative methods, and futurisms. In these workshops, we pair hands-on prototyping activities for participants with instructor-led sessions that cover the methods, tools, and strategies used in futures and speculative thinking. Learn more at https://cofutures.org
The workshop will be built around different speculative manifestos that will guide practical exercises and discussions. The workshop comprises three theory (strategy) sessions, three activity sessions, and two building sessions. The readings for the theory sessions will be provided.
Opening: July 14, 6–9 pm
July 15th to August 30th
AU-DELÀ
Zahra Zeinali
Curated by Davood Madadpoor
A:D: Curatorial
Kurfürstenstraße 142,
10785 Berlin
7:30 pm
Meditation on Sound and Thoughts by Anton Kats
A:D: Curatorial is pleased to host Zahra Zeinali’s exhibition au-delà. The exhibition brings together a series of Zahra Zeinali’s paintings and Installations from the last three years for her first solo show in Berlin. The opening of the exhibition follows the Meditation on Sound and Thoughts by Anton Kats.
In au-delà, Zahra Zeinali uses the prism of her experiences as an Iranian immigrant to examine themes of exile, displacement, and trauma. She employs it to explore the sensations and memories of loneliness and vulnerability, expressing the agony and concussion of being uprooted and forced to navigate an unknown backdrop.
Press Release [eng]
November 2022 to July 2023
ECHOES–A series of encounters, laboratories, and excursions for young participants run by cultural practitioners, scientists, and artisans.
We are delighted to share that Sumac Space has been happily collaborating with VgK-ART IN CONTEXT on developing and curating the ECHOES in Berlin project since November 2022.
As a nine-month social format, ECHOES offers a warm and safe space for young participants to interact with cultural practitioners, scientists, and artisans. Through this program, they are encouraged to learn from and with one another, ask questions, and express their thoughts and ideas on the four thematic topics of Art, Ecology and Environmental Protection, The Culture of Remembrance, and Science & Future.
ECHOES features four programs to delve deeper into these themes: Late-Days Stories, Toward Community, A Day with Artisans, and A Day with Artists. These programs offer diverse approaches and perspectives for exploring the topics mentioned above.
We are thrilled to be a part of this exciting project and invite you to join us in supporting and encouraging young people to get involved.
www.echoesberlin.info
www.instagram.com/echoesberlin
EchoesBerlin2023@gmail.com
Updates from Sumac Space and Happy Holidays
Dear friends,
Sumac has been silent for a few months; in Iran, the protests continue despite a violent response by the regime, and this makes space for breathing and thinking tight for us.
We have also been silent to rethink the program and structure for the coming year. This necessity arises from our successful collaboration with our guest curators for seven online exhibitions and two physical exhibitions: The Tellers and its one-day symposium in Florence, and Sixth Tone in Vienna, among other collaborations in Sumac’s second year of existence.
We’d also like to inform you know about a change in the team: Katharina Ehrl, co-founder of Sumac is leaving at the end of the year to focus on her own projects. Her brilliant ideas have had a hugely positive impact, helping to shape what Sumac is today and informing both the conceptual and structural aspects of the project. We wish her the best of luck in her endeavors, and we will share some of them.
We hope you have a happy holiday season with your loved ones and an excellent 2023. May the new year be full of health, happiness, prosperous possibilities, and memorable moments!
Sumac Team
Domenica 19 giugno dalle ore 19
Di futuri e di altri spazi.
Arabpop e Sumac Space in conversazione
Via Della Funga 27/b
(Ponte di Varlungo)
Firenze
Arabpop. Rivista di arti e letterature arabe contemporanee e Sumac Space sono due progetti che, seppur in maniera diversa, gettano entrambi uno sguardo ai futuri possibili esplorati dalle arti e dalle letterature contemporanee della regione mediorientale, insieme a tanto altro.
Ne parliamo domenica 19 giugno dalle ore 19. Partecipano Davood Madadpoor (Sumac Space) e Fernanda Fischione (Arabpop).
From April 26th to July 5th, 2022
Almacén المخزن Armazém
curated by Daniel H. Rey
Almacén المخزن Armazém (@almakhzen123) presents and stores the archives and current explorations of artists, craft makers, chefs, musicians that have ties to both Latin America and the Arabic-speaking world. Playing on the Spanish word ‘almacén’ and Portuguese ‘armazém’ inherited from the Arabic ‘al-makhzen’, meaning ‘storage, stock, or warehouse’, this first volume focuses on micro and powerful interactions between the two regions by way of their peoples.
Daniel H. Rey looks at cross-pollination between regions and how the Arab-Latin and the Latin-Arab are not just hyphens or “identities” but, rather, lifestyles produced, recreated, and amplified by people. By consequence, he proposes the terms Lárabe and Lعtin, as experiences embodied by crafts, visual languages, music, and recipes that highlight hybridity, a daily reality shared by many. The exhibition seeks to situate itself historically, tracing heritages, genealogies, and contemporary migratory paths by way of the creative resources presented.
PARTICIPANT ARTISTS:
‘akhi huna, b. 2020, Sobradinho, Distrito Federal, Brazil. Adrian Pepe, b. 1984, La Ceiba, Honduras. Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. Ana Escobar Saavedra, b. 1978, Cali, Colombia. Lives and works in Dubai, UAE. Andrea Salerno, b. 1978 , Miranda, Venezuela. Lives and works in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, UAE. Cristina Serrano, b. 1995, Bogotá, Colombia. Lives and works in Bogotá and Cali, Colombia. Enrique Yidi, b. 1960, Barranquilla, Colombia. Lives and works in Barranquilla, Colombia and Bethlehem, Palestine. Sofia Basto Riousse, b. 1981, Pitalito, Colombia. Lives and works in Dubai, UAE.
March 19th, 2022, 11 am – 6:30 pm
Symposium – The Tellers
Villa Romana
Via Senese 68
50124 Florence, Italy
In conjunction with the exhibition The Tellers, Villa Romana will host a one-day symposium on Saturday 19 March 2022, starting at 11:00 am. The symposium aims to propose and discuss key points of the exhibition through contributions by Raffaella Baccolini (Università di Bologna, Forlì Campus), Nat Muller (Independent curator, writer, and academic), and Santiago Zabala (Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain), followed by a public discussion.
From March 18th to April 29th, 2022
The Tellers
Curated by Davood Madadpoor and Katharina Ehrl
Villa Romana
Via Senese 68
50124 Florence, Italy
In The Tellers, the artists invite us into a fictitious time. Constructing future scenarios acts as a form of temporal feedback loop, connecting these futures to the present or the remote past. They are speculations in the form of insights that relate to an object, a place, or even an event. These are in the future or have long since passed, whether imaginary or simply so traumatic that it escapes memory. Artists use storytelling to construct new myths and histories, question forgotten and suppressed history, and use it as a simulacrum for social critique. To them, becoming a teller entails an act of examining narratives and building new truths outside the dominant cultural history. They challenge one to understand the other’s perspective, welcome one to their new worlds, and make one walk on a blurry line between real and unreal.
From November 22nd, 2021, to January 18th, 2022
Dear Fractures Stones,
Curated by Baharak Omidfard
The exhibition Dear Fractured Stones, brings together a group of artworks exploring the nature of stone as material, as medium, and as metaphor. The exhibition will highlight the theme – (re)collect/(re)connect – one that demonstrates a variety of artistic strategies for repairing and re-establishing connections. Fractured stones can be understood as former parts of larger units whose connections are currently broken. A reparative attitude would thus allow these fragments to come together to form a unit, a whole.
Dear Fractured Stones, assembles nine artists from Iran and the Iranian diaspora. Although the presented works combine diverse art practices, they all share visual and content-related references to the themes of collection and archive.
PARTICIPANT ARTISTS: Mojtaba Amini, b. 1979, Sabzevar, Iran. Lives and works in Tehran. Vooria Aria, b. 1979, Sanandaj, Iran. Lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Aidin Bagheri, b. 1991, Tehran, Iran. Azin Haghighi, b. 1986, Tabriz, Iran. Tarlan Lotfizadeh, b. 1984 Tehran, Iran. Mahmoud Maktabi, b. 1985 Tehran, Iran. Shirin Mohammad, b. 1992, Tehran, Iran. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Nazanin Noroozi, b. 1985, Tehran, Iran. Lives and works in New York, USA. Mitra Soltani, b. 1988, Shahrekord, Iran. Lives and works in Tehran.
November 13th, 2021
16:30 GST
At the Foundry Downtown in Dubai, UAE.
Film Screening with commentary, followed by a conversation between Al-Sweel and independent curator Sarah Daher
Join curator Ruba Al-Sweel as she guides you through the selected films with commentary, followed by a conversation between Al-Sweel and independent curator Sarah Daher.
Through video compilation, digital archival material and moving image, ‘Garden of e-arthly Delights’ forays into the dark forest of the web to look at what’s budding underneath the surface. From viral videos and memelords churning out digital arte povera to new forces that impact market dynamics and political trends, this fertile ground incubates and accelerates fringe movements and a new class of ideologues that together, test what we know.
The exhibition brings together artists from, based in or around the GCC, whose works deal with memes as subject and medium to explore wider expressions of gathering, ritual and community in a new visual communicational landscape.
From September 6th to November 24th, 2021
Garden of e-arthly Delights
Curated by Ruba Al-Sweel
Through video compilation, digital archival material, and moving images, Garden of e-arthly Delights forays into the dark forest of the web to look at what’s budding underneath the surface. From viral videos and memelords churning out digital arte povera to new forces that impact market dynamics and political trends, this fertile ground incubates and accelerates fringe movements and a new class of ideologues that together, test what we know.
Showcasing eight artists from, based in or around the GCC, whose works deal with memes as subject and medium, the exhibition explores wider expressions of gathering, ritual and community to discover a new visual communicational landscape that maps out an alternative social terrain, varying definitions of being public and the terms of visibility and power.
PARTICIPANT ARTISTS: Ahaad Alamoudi, b. 1991, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Persia Beheshti, b. 1992, UAE. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Christopher Joshua Benton, b. 1988. Lives and works between Boston, MA and Dubai, UAE. Nadim Choufi, b. 1994, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. Basmah Felemban, b. 1993, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. GulfGraphixx, b. 1997, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Shamiran Istifan, lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland. Fatemeh Kazemi, b. 1992, lives and works in Tehran, Iran.
Open Call #1
Sumac Space Dialogues
The Dialogues section of Sumac Space is a platform for stimulating interaction and polyvocality, which encourages thinking and speaking nearby one another across physical distance and means of expression. Dialogues is a space of free thought and experimentation in form and content, where the common ground and linking subject are the artists presented in the exhibitions at Sumac Space, and the contemporary urgencies they respond to. Proposals from emerging writers, artists and curators who would like to try new and not-yet-tested strategies in working with text and image in relation to art are particularly welcome.
Sumac Space invites writers, curators, critics, researchers and thinkers to engage with the work of contemporary artists from the Middle East. Responses through research, contextual and visual essays, interviews, poetry, audio, video and hybrid formats are welcome.
Each contributor is free to decide about the form and content of their contribution, while receiving full editorial and English proofreading support. The following means of expression are encouraged:
Contextual and visual essays
Interviews and conversations
Curatorial texts
Reviews
Stories and mind maps using any combination of words, images and sounds
Curated reading lists
Audio and video responses
Please send your proposal (maximum 200 words), a few words about yourself and one of the following: a writing sample/a link to your website/a portfolio to editorial@sumac.space. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis and deadlines are agreed individually.
From April 6th to June 15th, 2021
Unconquered Spirits
Curated by Didem Yazıcı
What do forgotten or under-represented events say about history writing and the politics of everyday life? If we trace them, where the personal and collective memories, missing objects or untold stories can lead us today? The works that build this exhibition troubles different forms of power structures such as institution, archive, discrimination and state violence. Questioning the misuse of power dynamics and unsettling the internalized racist structures, Unconquered Spirits brings together works by artists Ulf Aminde, James Gregory Atkinson, Hanan Benammar, Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun, Cansu Çakar, Istihar Kalach, Rojda Tuğrul and Ülkü Süngün. At a time when social, political and environmental injustices seem overpowering, we tend to lose hope, hope for more equality, justice and fresh air to breath. In “Hope In The Dark”, a book that traces a history of activism and social change over the past decades, writer Rebecca Solnit wrote “Resistance is first of all a matter of principle and a way to live, to make yourself one small republic of unconquered spirits. You hope for results, but you don’t depend on them.” Whether through a journey of solidarity; an ancient mosaic from Hagia Sophia; an unwritten part of the Middle Eastern art history; a juxtaposition of the black power fist and the white power salute; a documentation of the historical site, Hasankeyf before its destruction; a mask eating Romulus and Remus; problematizing the term ‘desert ideology’ or a fictional monolog about the radical invention of institutions and self-governing, each work in the exhibition manifests a form of an unconquered spirit. Each of these works has its own protest nature and distinctive language of storytelling based on personal experiences or witnesses.
May 28, 2021 6:30pm – 7:45pm CET
Didem Yazici in conversation with the artists Ulf Aminde and Hanan Benammar
Each of the two works by Hanan Benammar and by Ulf Aminde has its own protest nature and distinctive language of storytelling based on personal experiences or witnesses. The curator of our current exhibition Didem Yazıcı will be in conversation with the artists about their artistic methodologies and their works exhibited in the show.
In his performative film work, Ulf Aminde deals with power structures and existing systems, first and foremost the institutions. Through the style of an undercover video with darkened body and special effect to alter the voice, the viewer is given the impression that the person talking is involved in an illegal act or for some other reason doesn’t want to be known. In a mysterious way, as this character speaks, it becomes clear that the main question being raised is whether radicality consists of initiating one’s own institutions or whether it is a matter of changing the institutions from the inside. Hanan Benammar, on the other hand, directly responds to the term “desert ideology,” which is used to describe Islamic culture by far-right circles. By naming her installation piece with the same title, Benammar turns the far-right term upside down. In her work, she brings the archival and image materials that she has collected over thirteen years of travels to desert areas into a poetical constellation.
May 26, 2021 6:30pm – 7:45pm CET
Didem Yazici and Ruba Al-Sweel in conversation with the artists Ülkü Süngün and Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun
The works by the artists Ülkü Süngün and Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun all take place in specific locations and histories and deal with underrepresented matters. Curator of the current exhibition Didem Yazıcı and arts writer and researcher Ruba Al-Sweel will be in conversation with the artists about their artistic methodologies and their works that are exhibited in the current exhibition Unconquered Spirits.
Ülkü Süngün’s photo novel project “The Best Novels Are Written by Life / Anlatsam Roman Olur” (2015) narrates the delicate story of Sergo Pipia and Marina Tsertsvadze, a refugee couple from Georgia who lived in a small town near Stuttgart, Germany, before they took back their asylum application and returned, disillusioned, to their homeland. Each of the three artists focuses on particular histories in the cities they have a personal connection to – Jerusalem, Batman (Hasankeyf), and Stuttgart – and each of them is based on their own individual curiosities driven by overlooked topics. Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun’s work “Set Off”(2019) handles a sensitive topic in an immensely careful, poetic, and mindful way – not only because it is a highly politically engaged theme he is dealing with but also more importantly because it is about a journey where innocent people were killed. In 2015, thirty-three activists from different generations from across Turkey had been planning to travel to Kobane, a Kurdish town on the Syrian border, to help with rebuilding the town after it was hit by IS. Through a bus ride, conversations, and anecdotes, the work becomes increasingly relatable. As opposed to labeling people as radicals or terrorists, it touches a deeply humane part of the entire story.
May 20, 2021 6:30pm – 7:45pm CET
Didem Yazici in conversation with the artists Istihar Kalach and Cansu Çakar
Subtle uneasiness, absurdity and humor; the paintings of Istihar Kalach and Cansu Çakar represent social-critique and dream-like lightness at the same time. Curator of our current exhibition Didem Yazıcı will be in conversation with the artists about their artistic methodologies and their works exhibited in the show.
Istihar Kalach’s oil and acrylic paintings are not afraid of subtle uneasiness or absurdity; she modifies the objects and plays with the way we look at things. In her paintings, there is often a sense of duality. The mask paintings, for example, have four eyes: two black, referring to blindness and two melting eyes, referring to unclear visions and misunderstandings. While Stolen Tears (2021) subtly refers to legacies of colonialism, the Europemask (2021) represents a kind of blankness of dominant cultural narratives. Cansu Çakar, on the other hand, challenges the stereotypical subjects and classifications in traditional decorative drawing technique. Questioning what it means to be a woman or anyone who feels themselves a woman, or a prisoner in an oppressive regime, her drawings are fictional or based on real-life incidents. Her painting Wash your sins not only your face (2019) is inspired by a fountain mosaic at the entrance of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul which originally reads as “Nipson anomemata mi monan opsin” (“ΝΙΨΟΝΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ”), a Greek palindrome attributed to Gregory of Nazianzus (AD. 329–390). Not only is it related to resistance but the phrase also refers to the two faces of morality, religion, and authority.
In celebration of the finissage of the exhibition Present Imperfect, artist Maya Perry will be playing an intimate live performance from Perry’s Bedroom. Inspired by Perry’s project “Bed Series”, on view in Present Imperfect, the improvised performance will be made up of experimental ambient sounds alongside beats and voice recordings of the other participants in the exhibition, describing their beds.
Join to experience the music and texts in a completely new way, online, within your own room, even from your own bed.
ON ONGOING, a series of five artist conversations in conjunction with our three digital exhibitions Present Continuous, Past Continuous, and Present Imperfect.
In the upcoming conversations Sumac Space will bring the artists together in new constellations and elaborate on their connection to the core questions addressed in the digital exhibitions Present Continuous, Past Continuous, and Present Imperfect. What connects the works in these exhibitions is the artistic practice that marks a tension by interrogating and recasting everyday objects and events to draw out their relationships to contemporary experience in a landscape of successive social and political change. Apart from the imminent need to consider the historical context out of which this current state of affairs has emerged, the chosen works reflect on contemporaneity as a concept that captures the frictions of the present.
March 3rd, 2021, 19:00 CET
Azita Moradkhani, Farzaneh Hosseini and Maya Perry in conversation with Christine Bruckbauer
Christine Bruckbauer (born in Steyr, Austria) is a curator, art writer and university lecturer with the focal research point of contemporary art practices in North Africa, South and West Asia. With a sociological approach of art observation and an interest in transnational and postcolonial cultural-political developments, she is dedicated to initiating artistic and sociopolitical dialogues. She completed her doctorate in art history at the University of Vienna, and worked as a curator at the Secession, Vienna. She also taught at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London, at the Manouba University in Tunis, and at the University of Vienna. Together with Negar Hakim, she founded the art and architecture platform philomena+ in 2016. Today she works as visual arts programme director for Philomena+
February 24th, 2021, 19:00 CET
Camila Salame and Christine Kettaneh in conversation with Amanda Abi Khalil
Amanda Abi Khalil is an independent art worker based between Beirut and Rio de Janeiro whose work focuses on socially engaged practices. She is the founder of Temporary Art Platform, a non-profit that aims to shift artistic and curatorial discourse towards social and contextual concerns through residencies, research projects, and commissions.
Her recent curated projects include Make yourself at home: radical care and hospitality an emergency relief project in collaboration with Kaaysa art residency, Boiçucanga; www.covideo19.art; Living Room (UIT): Use it Together at ISCP, New York; Chou Hayda, When all seemingly stands still, GreyNoise, Dubai; Simple past, perfect futures; images in countershot at the Centquatre, Paris; Pippera, pipperoo, pipperum at Meinblau in Berlin amongst others.
She held teaching positions at the American University of Beirut (AUB) the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and the Saint Joseph University (USJ) in Beirut and curated exhibitions, public art commissions and other social practice related formats in and with International art institutions.
Previously she was the curator of the Hangar Umam D&R, Beirut an independent art space focusing on archive-based practices. Her current research revolves around the theme of hospitality and guest-host relations tackling forms of migrations in and between contexts such as the Middle-East, North Africa and Latin America.
February 18th, 2021, 19:00 CET
Benji Boyadgian, Elmira Abolhassani and Majd Alloush in conversation with Başak Şenova
Başak Şenova is a curator and designer. She studied Literature and Graphic Design (MFA in Graphic Design and Ph.D. in Art, Design and Architecture at Bilkent University) and attended the 7th Curatorial Training Programme of Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam. Senova has been writing on art, technology and media, initiating and developing projects and curating exhibitions since 1995. She is one of the founding members of NOMAD, as well as the organizer of “ctrl_alt_del” sound art project and “Upgrade!Istanbul”. Senova acts as the Turkish correspondent of Flash Art International and a member of the editorial board of Pass, International Biennial Association’s (IBA) journal. Senova acted as an advisory board member of the Turkish Pavilion in Venice Biennial, Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 ARK (BiH) and also the Istanbul Biennial. She was the curator of the Pavilion of Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Senova completed a long-term research-based art project CrossSectionsthat took place in Vienna, Helsinki, and Stockholm (2017- 2019). At the moment, as a Visiting Professor, she is running “The Octopus Programme” with Barbara Putz-Plecko at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. https://basaksenova.com
February 10th, 2021, 19:00 CET
Timo Nasseri, Navid Sajadi Azimi and Ruth Patir in conversation with Neil van der Linden
Neil van der Linden curates music, theatre and visual arts projects related to the Middle-East and North-Africa. He worked as music advisor with Paradiso Amsterdam, the Holland Festival, the RO theatre Rotterdam and the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Beiteddine Festival Lebanon, the Festival of Sacred Music in Fes Morocco and the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, the New York University Abu Dhabi and the Hong Kong Municipality Festival. He introduced several Dutch and Belgian theatre companies to the Fajr Theatre Festival Iran and the IIFUT Iran International Festival of University Theatre and vice-versa several Iranian theatre productions and theatre makers to the Dutch and Belgian audiences. He founded and co-edits the online Gulf Art Guide and the Amsterdam Medina site on activities in and from the Middle-East in Amsterdam.
February 3rd, 2021, 19:00 CET
Wafa Hourani, Anahita Razmi and Jafra Abu Zoulouf in conversation with Nat Muller
Nat Muller is an independent curator and writer with an expertise in contemporary art from the Middle East. Recent projects include: the Danish Pavilion with Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour for the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, the group show Trembling Landscapes: Between Reality and Fiction at Eye FilmMuseum in Amsterdam, and Kurdish-Iraqi artist Walid Siti’s first monograph, published by Kehrer Verlag in 2020. Her writing has been published amongst others in Springerin, MetropolisM, Bidoun, ArtAsiaPacific, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, Canvas, X-tra, The Majalla, Art Margins, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Ibraaz, and Ocula. She has also written numerous catalogue and monographic essays. She is completing an AHRC-funded PhD on science fiction in contemporary visual practices in the Middle East at Birmingham City University. http://www.natmuller.com