At first glance, Cityscapes (2010) seems to be a collection of panoramic photographs of the city of Istanbul—the kind that are found on postcards in souvenir shops. A closer examination, however, reveals that a key element—the minaret—has been systematically removed, thereby changing profoundly the history and religious character of the city. The work is a response to a November 2009 referendum in Switzerland that approved a ban on the construction of new minarets in that country. It was also a crucial time in Turkey’s negotiation for entrance into the European Union. Instead of making a direct, didactic comment on the controversy, however, Abbas offers up a clever question regarding how landmarks are interpreted in vastly different ways depending on their cultural context. In the Western imagination, minarets are political symbols as much as they are religious architecture. In the Muslim world, they serve as mnemonic devices that enable residents to recognize their own city.
Hamra Abbas, who lives and works in Boston and Islamabad, Pakistan, makes work that has a profound connection to her own cultural context. She asks probing questions about the everyday and its complex relationship with history and ideology; her subject matter ranges from religious rituals to war and the sexual iconography of the Kama Sutra. Working with a diverse range of materials and media, Abbas frequently intertwines the contemporary with the classic to offer up a critique of both modern Western and Islamic cultures.
This photograph of Martin Creed himself was used as the invitation card for a fundraising auction of works on paper at Christie’s South Kensington in support of Camden Arts Centre’s first year in a refurbished building in 2005...
© 2023 All rights reserved - The Eye of Photography Olivier Culmann, URSSAF Normandie, site du Havre @ Olivier Culmann Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Normandie, France 10/05/2023 © Olivier Culmann / Tendance Floue @ Thomas Jorion @ Sidonie Van Den @ Isabelle Scotta @ Carlo Lombardi S From October 21st to January 7th, 2024, for its 14th edition, 25 international photographers, both established and emerging, can be discovered in an open-air exhibition tour throughout the city, on the beach, and indoors at Point de Vue and Les Franciscaines...
Stunning Macro Photos Pay Homage to Frozen Beauty of Winter Home / Photography / Macro Photography Stunning Macro Photos Pay Homage to the Frozen Beauty of Winter By Jessica Stewart on February 9, 2024 Photographer Jan Erik Waider is primarily known for his sweeping landscape photography that focuses on the wintry environments in Iceland and Greenland...
Frequencies of Tradition at Incheon Art Platform, Curated by Hyunjin Kim With works by Sooryeon Choe, Chung Seoyoung, Yoeri Guépin, Ho Tzu Nyen, Chia Wei Hsu, siren eun young jung, Jane Jin Kaisen, Alexander Keefe + Ashoke Chatterjee & Liz Phillips, Tomoko Kikuchi, Ayoung Kim, Gala Porras-Kim, Seulgi Lee, Young Min Moon, Hwayeon Nam, Part-time Suite, Ko Sakai & Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Lieko Shiga, Simon Soon + Roger Nelson & Stella, Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, Erika Tan, Fiona Tan, Evelyn Taocheong Wang, Wang Tuo, Ming Wong, Yo Daham, and Zheng Guogu Frequencies of Tradition departs from an understanding of tradition as a space of contestation, where one can critically reflect on Asian modernization and pluralize our comprehension of the regional modern...
The Royal House of Allure is a name of a safe house on mainland Lagos where members of the queer community in need of boarding, due to various circumstances, live together...
DADYAA: The Woodpeckers of Rotha by Pooja Gurung and Bibhusan Basnet illuminates a unique and seldom seen international perspective on indigenous cultures and contemporary social issues in the Nepali context...
KADIST is seeking a Collection Fellow based in the Asia Pacific for November 2023 (6-month position with 8-10 hours per week commitment) KADIST offers a paid six-month collection fellowship to an emerging curator or recent graduate of art history, museum studies, critical writing, or a related field from college or university programs...
In Fiction on Auction , the site of the auction is used to stage a fiction where the right to appear as character in Looking for Headless is offered to the highest bidder: the name of the successful biddder as registered for the auction will form the name or identity of the character appearing in the novel...
Artist Wong Kit Yi’s A River in the Freezer combines directed and found footage to meditate upon glacial memory, cryogenics, and frozen fiction...
The Royal House of Allure is a name of a safe house on mainland Lagos where members of the queer community in need of boarding, due to various circumstances, live together...
Organizers decry last-minute cancelation of Hanoi EDM festival (via Tuoi Tre News) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles November 27, 2018 An EDM (electronic dance music) festival scheduled to take place just outside Hanoi from November 23 to 25 was asked to cancel only hours before its opening, despite sold tickets and foreign and local artists and volunteers already heading to the venue...
After the Finish Line is a recent film by Adelita Husni-Bey produced for the exhibition Movement Break at Kadist-SF in 2015...