Sharjah Biennial 10: Film and Audio Commissions Exhibition

Karim Aïnouz, Sunny Lane (Sonnenallee), 2011, film still.

The Sharjah Biennial 10: Film and Audio Commissions Exhibition has been on since 10th November 2011 and there's a few days left for this, it will end on 14th January 2011. 

I've been meaning to share this for a while and told myself I must make sure I don't miss this, particularly because the exhibition includes the screening of Rania Stephan's The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni which I wrote about a few months ago and I'm dying to watch. 


About the exhibition: 

This exhibition will present seven films and three audio works commissioned for Sharjah Biennial 10. Six filmmakers were invited to create a new short film inspired by the Biennial’s title Plot for a Biennial and the key words–Treason, Affiliation, Corruption, Necessity, Devotion, Disclosure, Translation and Insurrection–that constituted its conceptual framework.

Also on view is Rania Stephan’s Sharjah Biennial Prize winning film The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni.

Rania Stephan, The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (Ikhtifa’aat Soad Hosni el-Thalaathat), 2011, Lebanon/UAE, film still.

In addition to the films, this exhibition will present audio works created by filmmakers for Sharjah Biennial 10.  These works reflect the content of the commissioned films and resonate with the energy of the Arab Spring.

Artist List

Karim Ainouz
Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
Hicham Ayouch
Ali Essafi
Sean Gullette
Bahman Kiarostami
Rania Stephan

Must get myself to Sharjah before 14th January.

Event details
Date: till 14th January 2012
Venue: Bait Al Serkal, Sharjah (location map)
Phone: +971 6 568 5050
Free Entry

www.sharjahart.org

[images via sharjahart.org]

Middle Eastern Skies by Ammar Salem

I love stargazing, but unfortunately, there's so much light pollution in Dubai, you really need to get away from the city to appreciate the night sky.

Ammar Salem's Middle Eastern Skies takes us on a journey into the skies above us in the region from dusk till dawn. Shot in Syria and United Arab Emirates (Dubai and Sharjah), he's described it as an experimental video. I don't know about you, but I quite like it.

www.vimeo.com/tobe2d

Film Screening - Pink Saris

To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th March, the British Council will be organising free public screenings of the film Pink Saris by UK director Kim Longinotto, in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women over the years and the British Council in the UAE will join organisations globally, and in the United Arab Emirates, to promote and create awareness of women’s issues.

“The British Council is passionately dedicated to raising awareness of social issues and how those could impact society at large. The film screenings of Pink Saris aim to do just that, by recognising the need to share experiences and approaches in order to tackle the continuing inequalities and discrimination faced by marginalised groups in societies worldwide.”
Michel Bechara, Director of Projects, British Council UAE

Event details:

Abu Dhabi
Cinestar in Marina Mall at 9pm (contact rsvp@adff.ae for seat reservation)

Dubai
Centrepoint Theatre, DUCTAC in Mall of the Emirates at 8pm (contact info@thesceneclub.com for seat reservation)

Sharjah
Shelter, Maraya Art Centre in Al Qasba at 8pm (contact marayaartcentre@gmail.com for seat reservation)

All three screenings are complimentary, but seats are limited, so make sure you make a reservation.

Internationally acclaimed director Kim Longinotto's Pink Saris is an unflinching and often amusing look at the all-woman vigilante Gulabi Gang in Northern India and their charismatic leader, Sampat Pal, who acts as judge and jury for girls and women who are being abused by outlawed patriarchal traditions and the caste system.

"A girl's life is cruel...A woman's life is very cruel," notes Sampat Pal, the complex protagonist at the center of Pink Saris, internationally acclaimed director Kim Longinotto's latest foray into the lives of extraordinary women (Sisters In Law, Divorce Iranian Style, Rough Aunties). Sampat should know -- like many others she was married as a young girl into a family which made her work hard and beat her often. But unusually, she fought back, leaving her in-laws and eventually becoming famous as a champion for beleaguered women throughout Uttar Pradesh, many of whom find their way to her doorstep.



www.internationalwomensday.com
www.britishcouncil.org/me-uae 

March - a month of art and culture on steroids

Art Dubai 2010

It's March, which means a month of art and culture on steroids in Dubai (and in nearby Sharjah). So if you are hungry for some art, this is the month to step out and find out what's make discover what is on offer.

Here's a brief rundown of what's coming up this month and look out for detailed posts over the next few days for some of the events I'm really looking forward to.

07-12 March - Gulf Photo Plus
08-12 March - Emirates Airline Festival of Literature
13-15 March - Sharjah Art Foundation's March Meeting
16-19 March - Art Dubai
16 March till 16 May - Sharjah Biennial
... and lots of exhibition openings in galleries across Dubai.

Art in the City is a great resource that lists all art related events in the UAE, so have a look if you want detailed information to mark your calendars.

For now, I leave you with this collage of photos I took from last year's Art Dubai and hope to see you around at one or several of the events listed above. 

Road Trip

A friend of mine had the idea to visit all the seven Emirates as a new year day adventure and let me tag along. We ended up having a fabulous road trip. It was a quiet day on the roads because of the holiday, and we made lots of stops to check out some very quirky sites.

Here's a small sample of what we saw. I plan to put together a detailed post about this trip after I sort out all the photos. So for now, enjoy this small selection or surreal moments from the road trip.

An eagle or a pigeon?

Mini Forts

Ancient Egyptian Martians in Umm Al Quwain

Mermaid and Dolphin

Giant yougurt tub on the highway

CAVE - Sharjah 2010

CAVE - Sharjah 2010 is video art exhibition that is currently on at Maraya Art Centre, Al Qasba in Sharjah. CAVE stands for Contemporary Arab Video Encounter and includes a group of multimedia artists from across the Arab world who have joined together to investigate the region’s foremost social movements of the past several decades.

Exploring social movements within a regional collective, CAVE is an assortment of personal statements reiterated by 9 exceptional artists from the Arab World and its diaspora. Sounding records on visual movements, strictly presented through short video expressions, this Contemporary Arab Video Encounter examines regional perspectives on sheltering structures through diverse realms of ever-changing institutional discourse on modern habits.  In this exhibition, we look at how such ideas are received across an assortment of generations which have dealt with social migrations, cultural evolutions, and factional histories.

The theme [as the title suggests] is that of a "Contemporary Arab Video Encounter", whereby for the first time for an exhibition will be set-up to strictly work in projected moving images. Including renowned names from the region, each work is visually and audibly announced although not necessarily structured as a collective housed in a single exhibition hall of video archives.  
Aida Eltorie, curator

The Beautiful Language by Mounir Fatmi
The exhibition includes the following videos by nine artists from the Middle East:

• Bread of Life, 6:33 mins by Adel Abidin (Iraq)
• The Beautiful Language, 16 mins by Mounir Fatmi (Algeria)
• Couscous Aftermaths, 9:36 mins by Kader Attia (Algeria)
• Distorted Reality (Improvisation), 9:58 mins by Faisal Samra (Bahrain)
• REVOLUTION: Liberty, Social Equity, Unity, 4:32 mins by Khaled Hafez (Egypt)
• A Space Exodus, 5:24 mins by Larissa Sansour (Palestine)
• Reversed TV, 9:59 mins by Mounira Al Solh (Lebanon)
• Moving Stone, 4 mins by Mohamed Kazem (UAE)
• The Path, 3:04 mins by Abdul Nasser Gharem (Saudi Arabia)

Moving Stone by Mohamed Kazem

Bread of Life, 6:33 mins by Adel Abidin (Iraq) I've not had a chance to go to this exhibition yet, although I've seen one of the videos before, Bread of Life by Adel Abidin at Abu Dhabi Art's open air cinema at Art, Talks and Sensations, which was one of my favourite at that screening. The exhibition is on till 11th December, so I hope to get a chance to go after I return from London.

There's a long weekend coming up in the United Arab Emirates, so if you want to do something different, don't miss this.  

Exhibition details:
Date: On till 11th December 2010
Time: 10:00 am to 10:00 pm (Saturday-Thursday), 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm (Friday)
Location: Maraya Art Centre, Block E, 3rd Floor – Al Qasba in Sharjah (location map)
Phone: +971 (0)6 556 6555

www.alqasba.ae
www.alqasba.ae/maraya
www.alqasba.ae/cave-sharjah2010

Air Outpost by John Taylor and Ralph Keen

This gem of a short film (split into two parts) from 1937 shows Sharjah from a very long time ago and a slice of airline history from this region long before the United Arab Emirates was created.

Directed by John Taylor and Ralph Keen and sponsored by Imperial Airways (today known as British Airways!), it shows 24hrs at the airport and city of 'Sha-jah'.

I first came across this video almost a year ago via Fake Plastic Souks and I've been trying to get my hand on a copy of this film ever since. Now that it's posted on YouTube, I'm glad to share it here with you.

Here's an extract from Fake Plastic Souks, and I strongly recommend you read the full post by Alexander McNabb. It's very entertaining and worth reading.

Click to read more ...