ART TERRITORIES

from Go Down, Moses by Ahmad Hosni

ArtTerritories.net is a great new web project by Ursula Biemann and Shuruq Harb that launched earlier this month. The premise of the site is a forum for dialogue between "...artists, thinkers, researchers and curators to reflect on their art practice and engage in critical exchange on matters of art and visual culture in the Middle East and the Arab World." The format is question and answer and the content is created, in part, by each subject agreeing to later contribute as an interviewer. 

Art Territories is a promising venue for an exchange and exploration of thoughts, ideas and processes. The academic tone of the site at times may be a slight barrier to the average reader interested in art of the region, but it will certainly strike a chord with those already comfortable with the vocabulary of discourse about art.

Photographer Ahmad Hosni, who is the subject of the first interview (or 'trail' as each interview is referred to by Art Territories) was recently in touch with GMEP about his book project Go Down Moses, which he discusses on Art Territories. Unfortunately, the funding for the printing of the book fell through when the funders discovered that Hosni's idea of a book on tourism (specifically in Sinai) and their idea of a book on tourism were not sufficiently similar. While Hosni chose to show context to the tourism, and interpreted tourism in a much more broad manner, the people paying for the printing were seemingly expecting postcard photography that would lead to little enlightenment or discussion about the area, but would instead contribute to an idealized view of the Sinai.

You can see a preview of the book -which is named after and inspired by the William Faulkner novel by the same name HERE.

Following Hosni, 'threads' by Shuruq Harb interviewing Yazid Anani and Ursula Biemann interviewing Bilal Khbeiz, have quickly established the tone and direction of the site and suggest that Art Territories will be a resource to watch very closely for inspiration and education from within our own region.

Editor addendum: after publishing this post, we received this clarification from Ahmad Hosni.
Just a slight clarification: it wasn’t because we had different ideas of what the book should be about; there was a proposal that clarified that from the very outset, which was never supposed to be a postcard book. The funding was ceased because of the local government saw it as too critical and biased, and above all because of the biblical references and references to Israeli era and tourism.