BRUSSELS.- Mophradat, an international non-profit contemporary arts association that creates opportunities for artists from the Arab world, reveals the eight artists selected for the second edition of the Consortium Commissions. A pioneering model for co-commissioning ambitious new work initiated by Mophradat, the Consortium Commissions exemplify the organization’s inventive approach to supporting artists from the region. A program of exhibitions, performances and music will take place from June 2020 to 2022 across nine locations including Alkantara, Lisbon; Ancienne Belgique, Brussels; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; The Showroom, London; De Appel, Amsterdam; Haus der Kulturen der Welt; Berlin; Portikus, Frankfurt; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; and Spielart, Munich.
The 2020/22 selected visual artists are Haig Aivazian, a Lebanese multi-disciplinary artist, Inas Halabi, an artist and filmmaker from Jerusalem, Joe Namy, an artist, educator, and composer based in Beirut and London, and Lydia Ourahmane, a multi-disciplinary artist based in Algiers. The selected performing artists are Dina Mimi, a visual artist from Jerusalem and Maan Abu Taleb, also Palestinian, is a novelist, essayist and cultural editor. The selected musicians are Makimakkuk, a Palestinian singer, MC, DJ, music maker, and artist; and Deena Abdelwahed, a Tunisian DJ and producer.
Mophradat’s selection process for the commissions created room for invaluable conversations with artists and institutional leaders that I respect greatly and that will stay with me for years. The two artists De Appel will present — Inas Halabi and Lydia Ourahmane — alongside Showroom and Portikus respectively have already began to make an impact on our institutional thinking. We consider how to engage Arab cultural vocabularies in all their plurality. And it has become clear already in this early stage how these incredible young women will inspire our public with their unique worldly aesthetics. - Monika Szewczyk, Director, De Appel
As a network of three institutions coming from the tradition of theatre and performing arts, the Consortium Commissions gave us the possibility to join forces to support projects from other disciplines. We decided collectively to support Dina Mimi, whose practice comes more from visual art, and Maan Abu Taleb, who usually works in music and writing. In both of them we perceived an impressive performative potential. In this sense the Consortium Commissions acts as a tool that allows artists to experiment outside their existing practice. - Daniel Blanga Gubbay, Co-director, Kunstenfestivaldesarts
What we have been working to achieve is finding a way to engage some of the most exciting international institutions with the broad range of exceptional art coming out of the Arab world, but also finding a way to bring the artists into the institution’s curatorial conversations rather than as part of discussions around diversity and representation. With this model, the artist and curators engage as collaborators, and the audiences are invited to meet these new practices on their own terms outside political labels. – Mai Abu ElDahab, director, Mophradat
