27 Oct 2011

Roaming Images at Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece

The project Roaming Images researches the conceptions of the image along with the ideologies and geo-cultural climates that fostered them.

Having as a point of reference not a nostalgia for the long-lost high culture, but the actuality of past cultures for contemporary art theory and practice across the globe, and particularly in Eastern Mediterranean and the greater Middle East, the project adopts a critical stance toward the present. The research of image within our theoretical framework moves beyond the sterile adherence to the aesthetic creed of a homogenizing modernism and alternative (post)modernisms.

Our aim is to investigate the conception of the image in an international setting, and this already requires a critical engagement with the worldly and the world-wide, perhaps on the basis of what recently been coined 'planetarity' - a prospective and informal 'enlightenment' movement - to move away from traditional 'universalisms' and 'globalisms'.

We invite artists, scholars, writers to contribute to this goal. Artists and scholars meet in different event-stations for exhibitions, interventions, lectures, roundtables, workshops, guided tours and other consciousness-raising events, inviting the public to meet, interact and exchange ideas.

Phase A: ROUTE (December 2010 - December 2011)
A series of projects in various cities, along the route linking Muscat (Oman) to Thessaloniki (Greece), in collaboration with local partner institutions, correspondent curators, local artists and scholars.

a) Meeting the Art Scene of Oman (December 2010, Muscat, Oman)
b) Mapping the Art Scene in Sharjah and the UAE (exhibition 8/6/2011 - 6/8/2011, workshop 8/6/2011 -21/6/2011, Sharjah, UAE)
c) The Persistence of the Image (19/06/2011, Nicosia, Cyprus)
d) Syrian Icons (June, July 2011, Damascus, Syria)
e) BEY Route (21/9/2011 - 2/10/2011, Beirut, Lebanon)
f) Men in the Sun (November 2011, Jaffa, Israel)
g) Articulations (December 2011, Alexandria, Egypt)
h) Bidoun Video Art Project 2011 (Bidoun & Bidoun Projects)
Phase B: EXHIBITIONS (18 September 2011 - 8 January 2012)

A major exhibition consisting of two parts presented at the MMCA in Thessaloniki:
a) Roaming Images Routes
The result of the local events that have been produced along this route (art works and/or artistic documentation), are presented in one exhibition.
Curator: Sotirios Bahtsetzis
Participants: Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Khalil Abdulwahid, Haig Aivazian, Ammar Mohammed Al Attar, Tarek Al Ghoussein, Maisoon Al SAleh, Ziad Antar, Klitsa Antoniou, Mouna Atassi, Marwa and Mirene Arsanios, Amna Badawy, Salma Badawy, Rabia Buchari, Wissam Charaf, Sherif El-Azma, Rami Farah, Ala Farhat, Zlatan Filippovic, George Haddad, Raya Haddad, Raafat Hatab, Fahed Halabi, Eman Hamdy, Ayla Hibri, Mahmoud Hojeij, George Katodrytis, Dalia Khamissy, Rola Khayyat, Van Leo, Rania Matar, Tim Kennedy, Fassih Keiso, Hassan Meer, Roy Samaha, Mark Pilkington, Copti Scandar, Wael Shawky, Zena Takieddine, Tanya Trabulsi, Elias Zayat.

b) Roaming Images Exhibition
International artists working in this broad geographical area exhibit works negotiating the notion of the image.
Curator: Iara Boubnova
Participating artists: Adel Abdessemed, Mounira Al Sohl, Lida Abdul, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Babak Golkar, Bouchra Khalili, Eleni Mylonas, Natascha Sadr Haghigian, Panayiotis Michael, Haris Pallas, Leila Pazooki, Kiril Prahskov, Aidan Salakhova, Kalin Serapionov, Wael Shawky.

c) Photography as a Means of Creating or Subverting Stereotypes
Organized by the Architecture School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in collaboration with Architecture Schools from Greece and the Middle East, the exhibition, curated by Lena Athanasopoulou, will present photographs by students. It will take place at the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation's Thessaloniki Centre.

Phase E: TOURING EXHIBITION (2012 - 2013)
Our goal is that this major exhibition will subsequently tour in the broader area of the Middle East.