Join curator and writer Sara Raza in conversation with artist Ala Younis on the occasion of Raza’s recently published book ‘Punk Orientalism: The Art of Rebellion’ to discuss intersecting geographical and cultural themes, and experimental and fractured poetic forms. Focusing on art and ideas from Central Asia and the Caucasus, the spaces and places associated with the former USSR, the book’s scope expands to Afghanistan, Arab World, Iran and Turkey, during and after the Cold War and draws directly from Raza’s curatorial practice.

6-6.30PM
28th February, 2023
The Yard

Sara Raza is an independent curator and writer on global art, and was the winner of the ArtTable New Leadership Award for Women in the Arts (2016). Sara was the Guggenheim UBS MAP curator for the Middle East and North Africa and curated But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, (2016), which travelled to the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan in 2018. Sara is the West and Central Asia editor for ArtAsiaPacific.

Raza is a specialist in contemporary global curatorial knowledge and 20th and 21st century museum collecting practices as well as professional interests in architectural art history, performance-based practices, and the intersection of art, the ancient thinking sciences, and emergent technologies. In 2019, she founded the global visual cultures curatorial studio Punk Orientalism through which she works on exhibitions, education projects and publications in Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, creating an important cultural bridge with the US.

Moderator, Ala Younis, is an artist, with curatorial, film and publishing projects. Using objects, film and printed matter, Younis often seeks instances where historical and political events collapse into personal ones. Her work also looks into how the archive plays on predilections and how its lacunas and mishaps manipulate the imagination. She holds a BSc. in Architecture from University of Jordan and MRes in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London.

Ala is a recipient of the Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowship, as well as two art prizes from Cairo Youth Salon (2005) and Jordanian Artists Association (2005). She is a co-founder of the publishing initiative Kayfa ta, co-head of Berlinale’s Forum Expanded, member of the Academy of Arts of the World (Cologne), and co-artistic director of Singapore Biennale 2022. She is a research scholar at Al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, at New York University Abu Dhabi.

About Majlis Talks

Majlis Talks, curated by Mahnaz Fancy, bring together artists, curators, researchers and art-world professionals for an evening of thoughtful and inspiring conversations.

The majlis has always provided the necessary form to plant the seeds of connections; a common ground for discussion and sharing. From the majlis we begin a convergence of differences, mingling vantage points, allowing new questions to rise.

Starting at 4pm on 28 February 2023 and running across six 25-minute sessions, this year’s Majlis Talks will see conversations with Fatima Ali, Lubnah Ansari, Loa Haagen Pictet, Nadine Abdel Ghaffar, Sara Raza, Rana Begum, Dr Cliff Lauson and more.