Ibraaz publishing launch
Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org), a new online publishing forum for writing on visual culture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) will be launched on the 1st June 2011.
Through the publication of essays by academics, artists, curators, historians, commentators, writers, and critics, Ibraaz will offer a primary research forum for in-depth, peer-reviewed texts about the MENA region. The long-term ambition of the project is to utilise these essays and ideas to further commission and develop full-length, illustrated books.
For the launch, Ibraaz’s selection of texts include Raymond W. Baker writing on systematic cultural cleansing in Iraq; Marwa Arsanios and Cecilia Andersson on the work of Christian Ghazzi; Ela Greenberg on the impact of G-Town, a hip-hop group formed in Jerusalem’s Shu’afat Refugee Camp; and an in-depth interview with Zineb Sedira. Elsewhere, Rachida Triki addresses the role of social networks in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions; photographer Dalia Khamissy shares her images of the Lebanese civil war’s ‘disappeared’; and Francesco Jodice presents a chapter of his acclaimed documentary on Dubai’s darker side Dubai Citytellers (2010). Other contributions include essays by Mark Westmoreland, Joe Khalil, Anthony Downey and a conversation between Lina Lazaar and Mohamed Talbi.
Ibraaz will also launch a research ‘platform’ that will address a different question every six months. For platform 001, the question posed in early 2011 was ‘What do we need to know about the MENA region today?’. We will publish a variety of responses from, amongst others, Tony Chakar, Ghalya Saadawi, Ahlam Shibli, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Achim Borchardt-Hume, Aida Eltorie, Chamber of Public Secrets, Hrair Sarkissian, Lina Khatib, Mounir Fatmi, Nazgol Ansarinia, Rayya Badran, Saskia Sassen, Simon Sheikh, Ursula Biemann, Shuruq Harb, Tina Sherwell, Yazan Khalili, Anna Somers Cocks, and Talinn Grigor.
As part of the 54th Venice Biennial, Ibraaz will also publish the catalogue for The Future of a Promise, the largest pan-Arab contemporary art show in Venice. The catalogue is edited by Anthony Downey and Lina Lazaar and includes illustrations of all works in the show, artists’ statements, essays by the editors, and essays by Samir Kassir and Rachida Triki.
Ibraaz Publishing and www.ibraaz.org are key projects initiated by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation (Tunis).
For further information, email info@ibraaz.org.
