Associação Cultural Videobrasil

A widespread term in military planning, humanitarian aid, healthcare programs, and political/business relations, MENA - Middle East and North Africa – does not have an established geographic definition yet. Depending on the situation at hand, countries move in and out from under this conceptual umbrella, making the term itself into something that is yet to come, on account of ever-changing political contexts. Currently, the MENA comprises the Asiatic countries Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine (occupied by Israel and including the Gaza Strip and West Bank), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and North African countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. However, some systems include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan and Western Sahara.

Videobrasil’s connection with this region harks back to the early 1990s, when the Festival went international, and the scope of its competitive show was defined as the mapping and dissemination of art from countries in the geopolitical South – composed of Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Southern Oceania, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Their myriad cultures, traditions, languages, moral codes, and social and political organization systems constitute a diverse, wildly rich universe. Despite their condition and symbolical idiosyncrasies – or perhaps as a result of them –, artists from these countries offer us striking takes on the world and human condition, in works submitted via open calls and shortlisted for the Southern Panoramas competitive show of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil for their aesthetic and conceptual power.

This week, as the largest, most important art fair in the Middle East, Art Dubai, takes place from March 19 to 22, Videobrasil features a retrospective of MENA artists who appeared at the Festival. Solange Farkas travelled at the invitation of the event’s organizers to take part in a panel of the Global Art Forum, a seminar and lecture program that is a part of Art Dubai and opened a week prior to the latter, in Doha. At the meeting, Farkas outlined Videobrasil’s relationship with the production of contemporary artists from the region. Three key artists to the history of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil are featured in the Art Dubai. Morocco’s Bouchra Khalili, who featured in the Festival’s 16^th edition, and was one of five winners of Art Dubai’s Abraaj Group Art Prize 2014 – she won with a piece shown at the French gallery Polaris, competing against roughly 500 contemporary artists represented by 84 galleries in 36 countries; and Lebanon’s Walid Raad (14^th Festival) and Akram Zaatari, both featuring works represented by the Sfeir-Semler Gallery (with venues in Hamburg and Beirut).

Apart from them, 51 other MENA artists have made their contributions to the history of the Festival, whose 18^th edition kicked off its 30^th anniversary celebrations in November 2013. Their works in various media present narratives which express different intentions, and tackle somewhat uncomfortable topics such as nomadism, otherness, image and representation, displacements, migration, gender, oppression and violence. These universal issues become endowed with specific sensibilities in the work of artists from that part of the world.

Taking advantage of this moment when Art Dubai takes center stage in the art world, we present our special VB in MENA program, tracing back some of the history of Videobrasil’s relationship with art production from that area, and featuring a few highlights.

Part 1:

Akram Zaatari triggers Festival’s embracing of the East

Ali Cherri wins prize at latest Festival edition

Bouchra Khalili won the Abraaj Group Art Prize at Art Dubai

Nurit Sharett – Memories of a divided country

Dor Guez creates work based on Christian Palestinian Archive

Part 2:

Bita Razavi constrói obra sobre vídeo censurado

Aya Eliav – Reencenações e cotidiano mediado

Oito horas de política e arte, por Kutlug Ataman

Moralidade e sexualidade nos trabalhos de Mahmoud Hojeij

Follow Special Videobrasil in MENA
Throughout this week, the site Videobrasils will highliht other artists of this region, who have participated in the Southern Panoramas competitive show. Don't miss it.