Co-lecturer, Authorship & Agency: Learning from the Middle East, Aalto University, Helsinki
The course ‘Authorship & Agency: Learning from the Middle East’ took place in 2017 at the Visual Culture & Contemporary Art (ViCCA) program at Aalto University. I co-curated the course along with the director of the program, Max Ryynänen. The aim was to learn from interesting artists and thinkers and pioneering cultural formations and to build new philosophical and artistic bridges to the area, its diaspora, and echoes. A number of artists from and based in the Middle East/South Asia were invited to join us from Iran, Syria, Pakistan, etc, either in person, via Skype or letters.
The first guest who joined us from her artist in residency in Dublin was the Iranian artist Jinoos Taghizadeh, who took us to a virtual studio visit through the files on her laptop and generously shared a map of her mind with us, reflecting on the state of the post-revolutionary Iran and herself as an artist constantly in the search of defining a role for herself in the midst of all that’s happening. In her exhibition ‘Open Wiring’ she addresses the disability and distress in finding a fundamental solution to the current disordered situation. It’s as though the solution can’t be anything but accepting and giving into temporary remedies, knowing that short-term solutions will eventually result into much bigger problems, a metaphor for the current general situation and the artist’s own condition.
The second guest was Salima Hashmi who reached us via Skype, an artist-curator and contemporary art historian, who taught at Lahore’s National College of Arts for 31 years before working as its principal for four years. Currently, dean at the Beaconhouse National University’s school of visual arts, she is known to promote a unique intellectual perspective among students, teaching them to appreciate nature, cultural traditions, and sacredness of the crafts, she also served temporarily as the Cultural Minister of Pakistan. Along with displaying the works of some artists, she talked about how they address and claim the beloved city of Lahore through their practices.
Our third guest, Khaled Ramadan, who is a Beirut-born (1973) curator (e.g. Manifesta 8) and art historian, who is now based in Antalya sent us a letter, ironically enough it never arrived.
Issa Touma, the Syrian filmmaker, photographer, and curator was our next guest. Apart from addressing the extensive Western media propaganda on Syria, he talked about Aleppo and how artists worked before, during, and after the end of the siege in Aleppo, how they memorized the city before it was destroyed and how they’re tracing their memories these days, he talked about people returning to their city and to their homes. He left us by saying, that in this war I only believe what I have seen with my own eyes.
Our last guests, Dzamil Kamanger and Kalle Hamm, who are familiar faces in the Finnish art scene gave us a lecture on their extensive artistic practices and the journey which they took through their two assumably entirely different geographies.