Workshop
13 August 2022–28 August 2022

More Than Human

Summer by Alserkal Avenue

Alserkal Avenue

As we think about possible post pandemic futures, this summer programme contributes to the ongoing debate around the multispecies and more-than-human realms.

Starts 13 August 2022

Ends 28 August 2022

Venue Alserkal Avenue

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How are human lives entangled with the lives of other-than-human beings?

In the past few decades, there has been a growing intellectual debate that blurs the distinction between nature and culture. Art has been central to this conversation. In fact, it is a vibrant medium for discussion and research in addition to ‘popularising’ this theoretical turn.

As we think about possible post pandemic futures, this summer programme contributes to the ongoing debate around the multispecies and more-than-human realms. We have collaborated with 5 young, emerging multi-disciplinary artists to ask them to step into the role of the programmer, bringing their artists’ sensitivities and perspectives to these burning questions.

Full Programme:

UNDER-GROUND

13 & 14 August

The seed marks the beginning.

Join us as we delve into invisible networks – from underground fungi and the date palm seed to human connections and suffering. We will connect to these hidden networks of overlooked, life-sustaining systems and open up conversations around cultural symbols of nourishment and agency.

Tracing Paper
Paper making workshop | Fatema Al Fardan & Zuhoor Al Sayegh
13 August | 12-2PM
A4 Space

Secret Underground Networks
Conversation led by Dima Al Srouri from Mycosphere
with Lara Hussein, Ceylan Uren & Yazen Al Kodmani
13 August | 3-5PM
Jossa by Alserkal

Amulets of Palm | تمائم من سعف
Multimedia Performance | Maitha AlSuwaidi & Reem Almenhali
August 13 | 5.30-7.30PM
Jossa by Alserkal

Panoptic
Screening
14 August | 2.30PM
Cinema Akil

Tracing Paper Showcase

Exhibition | Participants of the Tracing Paper Workshop
14 August | 4.30-5.30PM
Jossa by Alserkal


Guest Programmers:

Fatema Al Fardan

Fatema Al Fardan is an artist committed to seeing the world with curiosity and care. Her art practice is driven by inquiries facilitated through the vessel of research. She holds a dual BA from New York University Abu Dhabi in Economics and in Art and Art History: Art Practice (2020). Al Fardan is a recipient of the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (2021-22). Her work has been exhibited in Congress Center Basel (2022), Warehouse421 (2021), Khaleeji Art Museum (2021), and Middle East Institute's Art and Culture Center (2020). She won the collaborative Zachary Doss Friends in Letters Memorial Fellowship (2020) and "Best Photo Associated with Sustainability" at the Abu Dhabi Ports Photography Competition (2017). Al Fardan likes to hear stories more than she likes to tell them.

Zuhoor Al Sayegh

Zuhoor Al Sayegh is an Emirati interdisciplinary artist living in Abu Dhabi, and
Assistant Curator at the Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi. She is inspired by movement and stories. Al Sayegh’s research revolves around indigenous textile practices and the decolonisation of her own craft. She explores these foundations through her work in fibres and ceramics. Al Sayegh graduated with a B.F.A from the Art Institute of Chicago. She also participated in a residency programme at the Textile Art Center in Brooklyn, New York 2019-2020 with Yto Barrada as her mentor. She was recently chosen to participate in the Youth Takeover at Jameel Arts Centre as well as participating in Engage 101s inaugural art sale. She was also a member of BAIT15 and a part of SEAF’s eighth cohort.

Fatema Al Fardan & Zuhoor Al Sayegh

GROUND

20 & 21 August

Below our feet exists a world we take for granted. Yet, we navigate across various surfaces every day. Humans and non-humans alike find expression on the ground. Whether gliding on a polished floor or building a home, a constant choreography unites all earthly elements with grounds held by gravity.

making room
Shama Nair in collaboration with Zawyeh Gallery
20 August | 12-2PM
Zawyeh Gallery

Moving Mountains
Joint Space in collaboration with Safeya Alblooshi
20 August | 3-5PM
Joint Space

Screening and Discussion of The Outside In
Programmed by Alserkal Arts Foundation with filmmakers Hansa Thapliyal and Iram Ghufran
20 August | 6.30-8PM
Common Room

Narrated Liquid Contaminants
Interactive Sound Installation | Safeya Alblooshi
20 August | 7.30-8.30PM
Jossa by Alserkal

Sun + Water + Time - Organic Photography with Cyanotypes
Gulf Photo Plus in collaboration with Ame Artistic Studio
21 August | 12-1.30PM
Jossa by Alserkal

Fata Morgana
Screening
21 August | 2.30PM
Cinema Akil

Narrated Liquid Contaminants

Interactive Sound Installation | Safeya Alblooshi
21 August | 4-6PM
Jossa by Alserkal


Guest Programmers:

Lubnah Ansari

Lubnah Ansari (she/they) dissects notions of the personal and political with fervent curiosity. Utilising their multidisciplinary skills and feminist ethnographic frameworks, the artist and researcher explores practices of love as resistance. The NYU Abu Dhabi graduate has immersed herself in the roles of both insider and outsider and her work urges you to tap into your compassion. She is part of The Assembly at Jameel Arts Centre and is a post-graduate research fellow at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Arthur de Oliviera:
Arthur de Oliveira is an artist, filmmaker, poet, and theatre practitioner born in São
Paulo, Brazil. In his hybrid practice, de Oliveira’s works reimagines traces of immigration through materials ranging from found objects to fibre. Arthur graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi with a B.A. in Film and New Media and Theater and is currently pursuing a master’s in fine arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. He has shown his works in Brazil, Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan. His poetry chapbook concern of future/the present hello was published in 2020 under JARA Press.

Lubnah Ansari & Arthur de Oliviera

BEYOND-GROUND

27 & 28 August

How do we transcend the earth’s various borderlines and boundaries to travel to new places beyond them and within and beyond our souls/selves?

This weekend, we will consider our engagement with fiction and alternate narratives as a way of coping with life by attempting to move beyond it. This includes the cosmological, the fantastical, the fictional and the digital, in order to transcend the rigidities of our bodily selves on the ground. The three segments of this programme all come under the larger umbrella of the fictions we create for the frictions we experience, or the world-building we engage in, moving off the ground, to understand what we face on the ground.

Magical Realism and Writing the Fantastical Body: a Fiction workshop at CRANK
Zoe Patterson in collaboration with CRANK
27 August | 1.30-3PM
CRANK

Coffee Cup Reading Workshop

Collaboration with KAVE
27 August | 4-5:30PM
KAVE

Generative Human
MORROW Collective & Vamika Sinha in collaboration with SIMA Dance Company
Performance & NFT Exhibtion
27 August | 6-7.30PM
Sima Performing Arts

DNA Sound Healing Workshop

28 August | 10AM-12PM
DNA Health and Wellness

What if Goats Die
Screening
28 August | 2.30PM
Cinema Akil

Guest Programmer:

Vamika Sinha

Vamika Sinha is an arts and culture writer, poet, and photographer based in the UAE. Originally from India and Botswana, she holds a B.A. in Literature & Creative Writing from NYU Abu Dhabi and is the co-founder of Postscript Magazine. Her interests include cosmopolitanism, jazz studies, contemporary feminist novels, and cultural criticism through media and the visual arts. Vamika's work has been published in The National, Canvas, The Bangalore Review, and Wasafiri, among others, and she was the first writer-in-residence at Bayt Al Mamzar, UAE. Find her on Instagram @vamika_s or under her street photographer moniker @foodqueenhoney.

Vamika Sinha