Alserkal Residency announces Selection Committee 2019–2020

Alserkal Residency has announced its Selection Committee for 2019-2020. Comprised of leading international academics, curators, writers, and artists, the Selection Committee is responsible for nominating cultural practitioners for the spring and fall cycles, as well as reviewing applications for the summer cycle open call.  

The 2019-2020 Selection Committee, the second committee for Alserkal Residency, includes Pierre Bélanger, a landscape urbanist, author, curator, and educator, and founder of Landscape Infrastructure Lab; iLiana Fokianaki, a writer and curator, founder of State of Concept Athens and co-founder of Future Climates; Cesar Garcia, a writer and curator, and Founding Executive and Artistic Director of The Mistake Room (TMR), Los Angeles; Monica Narula, an artist and member of the Raqs Media Collective; Filipa Ramos, a curator, writer, and lecturer, and Editor-in-Chief of art-agenda and co-founder and co-curator of Vdrome; Uzma Z. Rizvi, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at the Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, NY, a Visiting Researcher in the Department of International Studies at the American University of Sharjah, UAE, and a member of the inaugural Selection Committee, and Raja’a Khalid, a UAE-based artist and current Alserkal Residency Manager. The multi-disciplinary Selection Committee was appointed based on their rigorous and thought-provoking personal practice, a pedagogical approach to community, and dynamic engagement with younger emerging practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines. The members of the 2019–2020 Selection Committee will participate in a series of public programmes, studio visits, and seminars in Dubai throughout 2019 and 2020, where they will also engage with the local arts community. 

The founding Selection Committee, Amanda Abi Khalil, Diana Campbell Betancourt, Luigi Fassi, Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Uzma Z. Rizvi, and founding Alserkal Residency Director Aquamarina Adonopoulou, have been instrumental in contributing to the first year of Alserkal Residency and in shaping the programme. One year on, Alserkal Residency has welcomed four cycles of residents, encompassing artists, curators, and architects, who have all delivered public programmes as part of their residency. 

Founded by Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal and the Alserkal family, Alserkal Residency was created as a platform for artistic experimentation and discursive exchange, seeking to support cultural practitioners as they research themes pertinent to their respective practices in the city of Dubai. The programme is open to artists, curators, writers, researchers, and architects, and is designed to be immersive and engage the local interdisciplinary community through a series of public events and conversations.