Exhibition
27 February 2024
Majlis Talks | Let the beauty we love be what we do
Curated by Zoé Whitley
Part of Alserkal Art Week
The majlis has always provided the necessary form to plant the seeds of connections; a common ground for discussion and sharing.
Let the beauty we love be what we do
Curated by Zoé Whitley
From the majlis we begin a convergence of differences, mingling vantage points, allowing new questions to rise.
In March 2024, Majlis convenes a dynamic cross-section of artists, architects, playwrights, musicians and filmmakers to discuss how we can collectively make and hold space. Inspired by the lines of Rumi’s poem, this will be an evening of joyous participation and talking together.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Project Space WH51 | 4-7PM
Schedule
Session 1
An introduction to This Is Not Your Grave by Dima Srouji, the first of Alserkal Arts Foundation’s 2024 public art commissions responding to the curatorial prompt by Zoé Whitley within the framework of Walk with Me.
Mandy El-Sayegh in conversation with Sara Raza
Inspired by American modernist writer Gertrude Stein’s poem Sacred Emily (1913) artist Mandy El-Sayegh and curator Sara Raza discuss how collaboration and poetry in times of censorship and diminished civil liberties can allow for the reclamation of words, gestures and objects.
Session 3
Abbas Akhavan, in conversation with Zoé Whitley
A discussion on artist Abbas Akhava’s ongoing study in the space between hospitality and hostility, questioning the meaning of authenticity in a natural world of increasing artifice.
Session 4
I will meet you again; Stories of loss and redemption
Salima Hashmi and Graciela Magnoni.
The conversation between Graciela Magnoni and Salima Hashmi is an extension of the ongoing exhibition Watan at 1x1 Art Gallery that captures the very essence of Punjab on either sides of the border of India and Pakistan.
Session 5
On Translucency
Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser
Alserkal Arts Foundation Residents - Spring 2024
A lecture performance, “On Translucency” is a mytho-poetic manifesto about the space between the shore and the tide, the translucent shallow, visible and invisible, dense and sheer. The talk will be accompanied by home-made instruments.