2015
2015
Julius Baer is proud to support the Forum Fellows programme at Art Dubai 2015
About Forum Fellows
Forum Fellows is part of Art Dubai’s educational, notfor-profit programme. Aimed at upcoming writers and curators, the programme includes a series of workshops and discussions held over the week of Art Dubai. The programme is led each year by a guest tutor; over the years we have been privileged to work with leading writers and curators who have given so much of their time, expertise and commitment to the programme. Invariably the Forum Fellows have stayed in touch with Art Dubai; their fellowship experience has led to curating and writing roles both with the fair and elsewhere. We are delighted to work with Julius Baer in 2015 to develop further this vital program and thank them for their support. Leading curators, writers and editors are asked for nominations, and fellows are selected based on their ideas, texts, experience and commitment, and plans for pursuing curatorial, editorial and translation projects in the Arab world. Each year, the fellowship programme brings together a group of exceptional practitioners (curators, writers and translators) from the Arab world and beyond. The group engages in workshops each day of the fair, led by the programme tutor with daily guest lecturers, and also engages in the fair’s programming, including the Global Art Forum, and gatherings with visiting regional and international critics, artists, editors and curators. In the long-term, this programme aims to develop an alumni group of dynamic Forum Fellows
About Forum Fellows
practitioners, who exchange ideas and experience, support each other, and promote best practice. Supported fully during their stay in Dubai, the Fellows are free to focus on presenting and developing their future plans with established leaders in the field; discuss ideas with the museum directors, curators, critics, gallerists and artists that attend Art Dubai and also share experiences and discuss best practice. The programme keeps within a three-year cycle, focusing on Curating, Writing and Translation.
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Julius Baer Group
Julius Baer is the leading Swiss private banking group with a focus on serving and advising sophisticated private clients. It has been the premium brand in global wealth management for the past 125 years and regularly supports initiatives that balance heritage with innovation. Due to its association with these traits, art is one of the primary areas of focus for Julius Baer’s global sponsorship activities. Although this medium is primarily a passion for many connoisseurs, it also bears enduring qualities and holds rich value. Reflective of this focus, in early 1930s, the Baer family started the Julius Baer art collection. Today, more than 5,000 works of art adorn the walls of the bank’s offices across the globe, and are regularly featured at art galleries and exhibitions. As the bank also recognises the cultural and intrinsic value art holds for its clients and the communities in which it operates, it has supported numerous events and partnered with the world’s leading art platforms. The Julius Baer Art Collection, for instance, is an initiative that was developed to promote the work of young contemporary artists in Switzerland. Indicative of this longstanding commitment to art, Julius Baer is proud to sponsor Art Dubai 2015 and to support the Forum Fellows program. The series of workshops will be a venue for thought-provoking discussions amongst established and upcoming Forum Fellows
Julius Baer Group
curators and writers in the region. As it aims to cultivate an alumni group of dynamic practitioners who exchange ideas and experience, and promote best practice, it will also support the long-term growth of these individuals and this initiative. This focus on sustainable growth and development are values that exemplify Julius Baer’s ‘Next Generation’ philosophy, which aims to spread knowledge on a variety of areas and examine forward-looking trends that impact societies across the world. Julius Baer is pleased to support the Forum Fellows program and provide a platform to engage these members of the art community, in addition to helping these experienced writers explore possibilities within their practice. With an international network in this space, the bank is also well placed to connect the participants at the fair with the global art scene. In doing so, the bank aims to raise the UAE’s profile as a hub for culture and art in the region.
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2015 Writing Fellows Rahel Aima Liane Al Ghusain Mirene Arsanios Kareem Estefan Yara Saqfalhait Stefan Tarnowski Lead Tutor Tirdad Zolghadr Guest Lecturer James Bridle
Forum Fellows
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2015
In keeping with previous editions of the Forum Fellows, the 2015 edition of the fellowship programme is plotted along two axes. The first is a series of discussions addressing the topic of new technologies, to which the 2015 Global Art Forum is devoted. The fellows will be engaging with invited speakers from the fair and beyond to explore the online developments that are increasingly markking criticism, curatorial prose and art journalism. Particular attention will be paid to the tension between timeliness and rigor; between keeping up with the present while acknowledging a complicated past. The second axis is an intensive writing workshop, for which the participants will present and critique each other’s work on a daily basis. Sheltered from any imperative to publish, the workshop will seek to encourage formal precision and stylistic singularity, with an emphasis on the fast-paced reception of texts amid shifting circumstances. —Tirdad Zolghadr
Forum Fellows
2015
Special thanks from Art Dubai to those who nominated fellows for the 2015 programme: Muhanad Ali Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi Omar Berrada Lara Khaldi Hassan Khan Christine Tohme Murtaza Vali Kaelen Wilson-Goldie Lantian Xie Ala Younis
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2015 Writing Fellows
Rahel Aima
Rahel Aima is a writer based in Dubai, editor-in-chief of THE STATE, and an editor at The New Inquiry. She holds a degree in Anthropology from Columbia University. Her research interests include internet aesthetics, nonwestern futurisms, and the #gccccc. @cnqmdi @thestate_ rahelaima.tumblr.com thestate.ae
Photograph by Dubravko Siskic
Forum Fellows
2015 Writing Fellows
Liane Al Ghusain
Liane Al Ghusain is a writer based in Kuwait. Her fiction has been featured most recently in Berlin Quarterly and The State. She holds a BA and MA in English and creative writing from Stanford University and has done postgraduate work at the Ashkal Alwan Home Workspace programme in Beirut. @lianelooks lianealghusain.com
Photograph by George Rouhana
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2015 Writing Fellows
Mirene Arsanios
Mirene Arsanios is a writer and founder of the literary magazine Makhzin. Her writings have appeared in both arts and literary magazines such as Bidoun, Cura, The Rumpus, Ink & Coda and Enizagam. She runs 98editions, a small Beirut press dedicated to cross-genre writing. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bard College @98weeks 98weeks.net mirenearsanios.tumblr.com
Forum Fellows
2015 Writing Fellows
Kareem Estefan
Kareem Estefan is a Brooklyn-based writer and the associate editor of Creative Time Reports. He writes about contemporary art and culture for publications including Art in America, Art-Agenda, BOMB, The New Inquiry and T Magazine. Kareem holds an MFA in Art Criticism and Writing from the School of Visual Arts and a BA in Comparative Literature from New York University.
@KareemEstefan creativetimereports.org
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2015 Writing Fellows
Yara Saqfalhait
Yara Saqfalhait is a researcher based in Ramallah. Her current interests revolve around spatial practices, their social and political connotations and the tyranny of terminology. She is a researcher at the Palestinian Museum. @yara_H_S palmuseum.org
Photograph by Karam Ali
Forum Fellows
2015 Writing Fellows
Stefan Tarnowski
Stefan Tarnowski is a writer and art labourer based between London and Beirut. He was Assistant Director and then Education Programme Director for Beirut Art Center and has participated in Ashkal Alwan’s Home Workspace Programme. His most recent articles featured in Art Asia Pacific and Camera Austria.
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2015 Lead Tutor
Tirdad Zolghadr
Tirdad Zolghadr is curator of the 5th Riwaq Biennale. Earlier curatorial projects include a number of discrete, durational initiatives as well as biennial settings in Taipei, Venice and Sharjah. Zolghadr’s writing includes novels, criticism and essays on contemporary art. The working title of his third novel is Headbanger.
Forum Fellows
2015 Guest Lecturer
James Bridle
James Bridle is a writer and artist based in London, UK. His writing on art, technology and culture is published by national newspapers and magazines, as well as online, and his work has been exhibited internationally. @jamesbridle booktwo.org
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2014 Curating Fellows Amanda Abi Khalil Azar Mahmoudian Yasmina Reggad Ania Szremski Lead Tutor Tirdad Zolghadr Guest Lecturers Shuddhabrata Sengupta Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
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2014 Curating Fellows Amanda Abi Khalil is an independent curator based in Beirut where she teaches and works. She is the founder of Temporary Art Platform, an association that promotes and produces ‘’contextual’’ art practice in the public realm. She has curated projects and exhibitions with artists from and beyond the MENA region. Azar Mahmoudian is an independent curator and researcher based in Tehran. She received her MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths in 2009. Her research is focused on politics of representation and exhibition histories of modern and contemporary art in Iran. She is a lecturer at Tehran Art University and co-runs a Tehran-based project space which prefers to remain under the radar. Yasmina Reggad is an independent curator and writer based in London, and works between London, Paris and Algiers as Programme curator at aria (artist residency in algiers) and Exhibition and Projects Manager at Delfina Foundation. She is currently curating We Can’t Be There. Emergency Provisions for (un)Anticipated Futures at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Tate Modern and in partnership with Goldsmiths University, London. Ania Szremski is Chief Curator at Townhouse in Cairo, Egypt, and an Editor and culture writer for Mada Masr. Ania was awarded a Fulbright grant in 2011 for research on Sadatera Egyptian cultural policy and has a dual MA in art history, theory and criticism and arts policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Forum Fellows
Lead Tutor Tirdad Zolghadr is curator of the 5th Riwaq Biennale. Earlier curatorial projects include a number of discrete, durational initiatives as well as biennial settings in Taipei, Venice and Sharjah. Zolghadr’s writing includes novels, criticism and essays on contemporary art. The working title of his third novel is Headbanger.
Guest Lecturers Shuddhabrata Sengupta is an artist and writer with the Raqs Media Collective, based in Delhi. The Raqs Collective’s work takes the form of installations, video, photographhy, image-text collages, on-andoff-ling meida objects, performances and encounters. They cross contemporary art practice with curation, historical and philosophical speculation, research and theory. Kaelen Wilson-Goldie is a contributing editor for Bidoun, writes a column for Frieze, and contributes regularly to Artforum.
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2013 Translation Fellows Sarah Abu Abdallah Alia Al-Sabi Khalid Hadeed Fadi Tofeili Lead Tutor Omar Berrada
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2014 Translation Fellows Sarah Abu Abdallah was born in Saudi Arabia (1990) and has a BFA from the College of Fine Arts, UAE. Currently, she is on a three-year-long documentary trip with the Edge of Arabia collective throughout the United States, which aims to be the first collective portrait by Middle Eastern voices. Her work has exhibited at the 11th Sharjah Biennial (2013), Rhizoma in the 55th Venice Biennale (2013) and Edge of Arabia in Jeddah (2012). Alia Al-Sabi is currently pursuiing an MA in Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts after having completed a degree in Architecture (2007) at the American University in Sharjah. Her primary research is centered on the intersection of these two disciplines. Khalid Hadeed holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University and currently teaches English and comparative literature at Kuwait University. His research interests include modern English, Arabic and world literatures, gender and sexuality studies, critical theory and postcolonial studies. He has also done translations between Arabic, English and French. Fadi Tofeili is a Lebanese writer, poet and translator. He is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Portal 9: Stories and Critical Writing About the City. He has authored poetry books and translated literary and mythological works into Arabic. His latest book is Iqtifa’a Athar (In Pursuit of a Trace).
Forum Fellows
Lead Tutor Omar Berrada is a writer and translator and codirects Dar al-Ma’mÛn in Marrakech. Previously, he hosted shows on French national radio and public programmes at the Centre Pompidou. With Yto Barrada, he recently edited Album –Cinémathèque de Tanger, a multilingual book about film in Tangier and Tangier in film. He co-directed the 8th edition of the Global Art Forum in Art Dubai.
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2012 Writing Fellows Rayya Badran Jyoti Dhar Shahira Issa Rijin Sahakian Lead Tutor Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
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2014 Writing Fellows Rayya Badran is a writer based in Beirut. She earned her MA in Aural and Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths College, London in 2008. Her first publication Radiophonic Voice(s) was published by Ashkal Alwan in 2010. She has written for Peeping Tom, Bidoun, Ibraaz, ArteEast and more. She currently teachrs a course on sound at the American University of Beirut. Jyoti Dhar is an art writer and curator based in Colombo. She is a contributing Editor for Art Asia Pacific and Harper’s Bazaar Art Arabia as well as an art critic for the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka. In 2014, she received the ‘Emerging Art Writer of the Year’ award by Forbes India. Shahira Issa is working on a long-term project that explores the tension between artistic impulses and notions of culture that inform the circulation of artworks. In 2008, Issa co-founded Pericentre Projects that developed the ongiong project Kharita. In 2009, she was nominated for the 5th Bonaldi Art Prize. Issa lives and works in Cairo. Rijin Sahakian is a writer and producer. She has contributed to various artist projects and publications and founded Sada, a project supporting young artists in Iraq in 2010. Most recently, she guest curated ‘Shangri La: Imagined Cities’ for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs while lecturing as visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts.
Forum Fellows
Lead Tutor Kaelen Wilson-Goldie is a contributing editor for Bidoun, writes a column for Frieze and contributes regularly to Artforum.
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2011 Fellows Salauddin Ahmed Noor Al Suwaidi Mirna Bamieh Emrah Gรถkdemir Sohrab M. Kashani Sumbul Khan
Forum Fellows
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2014 Fellows Salauddin Ahmed is the Founder and Principal at Atelier Robin Architects in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His works inquire the aspects of discovery vs. invention in the practice of architecture and its overlapping boundaries. Since architecture is a way to explore one’s own position in the society, Ahmed believes in breaking boundaries only to find new possibilities within the old. Noor Al Suwaidi is an artist, curator and cultural advisor to the UAE Embassy in Washington DC. Al Suwaidi’s own artistic practice focuses on abstract painting exploring the relation between figure and nature, while her curatorial practice aims to cultivate platforms for emerging creatives at home and abroad. Mirna Bamieh is an artist/curator from Jerusalem, currently based in Beirut. She investigates the experiences arising from dealing with the interactions between memory and imagination. She is currently curating Maskan Apartment Project. Emra Gökdemir is a visual artist, cultural manager and performance artist who is based in Turkey and Poland. He has collaborated with Yael Navaro in the field of anthropology and he is founder of Çekmece Art Group with Pawel Korbus and Maria Wronska. His works have autobiographical references.
Forum Fellows
Sohrab M. Kashani is a multidisciplinary artist and an independent curator based in Tehran, Iran. He has held several solo exhibitions and has participated in over 50 group exhibitions and screenings worldwide. Sohrab is the Founder and Director of Sazmanab Project, an independent artist-run space in Tehran. Sumbul Khan is curator at Poppy Seed. She has an MA in Art History from Tufts University (2005) and has taught undergraduate Art History at Framingham State College, Massachussettes, (2005-2006) and The Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi (2007-2009). She is co-editor of Between Intention and Reception: Art Criticism in Pakistan (published 2009) and has contributed articles on contemporary Pakistani Art for local publications such as Nukta Art and Newsline.
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Forum Fellows