Category: art

Visual Studies Workshop: In Dialogue with Mara Ahmed

I am thrilled to announce that I will be coming to Rochester, NY, on March 28th to present a dialogue between my work on colonial postcards and the Visual Studies Workshop’s film and lantern slide archives!

This will be an exciting conversation where we will see clips from my new film, about the aftershocks of colonialism, juxtaposed against film clips from Rochester in the 1970s that talk about police control and violence. We will make connections to current political power systems and pay special attention to the representations of women from the global south and white feminism. I make a lot of presentations, but this is the first time I have engaged with an institution’s archives and located my work within that framework.

Pls join us and add to the convo. You can register here.

Here is more info from the VSW’s website:

Mara Ahmed is an interdisciplinary artist and award winning activist filmmaker. Mara’s documentaries center marginalized voices and have focused on communities grappling with nuanced experiences around racism, colonization and islamophobia. She will present a program that incorporates her work with postcards, lantern slides and films she has researched and chosen from the VSW archive. Mara will also present clips from her latest film, Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation, which was awarded a NYSCA film grant, and will premiere at a future time in Rochester.

The evening will culminate in a discussion with Mara Ahmed facilitated by Hernease Davis, the Assistant Curator of Education and Public Programs. This program will also be livestreamed via twitch.tv.

Stills from Return to Sender: Sumayia Islam, Fatimah Arshad, Urvashi Bhattacharya

Wangechi Mutu’s work

I have loved Kenyan American artist Wangechi Mutu‘s beautiful and unsettling work for decades now, and I had missed her solo exhibition ‘Intertwined’ at the New Museum, so it was a thrill to see it in New Orleans @neworleansmuseumofart. “Representing the full breadth of her practice, this exhibition encompasses painting, collage, drawing, sculpture, film, and performance. Mutu first gained acclaim for her collage-based practice exploring camouflage, transformation, and mutation. She extends these strategies to her work across various media, developing hybrid, fantastical forms that fuse mythical and folkloric narratives with layered sociohistorical references… Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined traces connections between recent developments in Mutu’s sculptures and her decades-long exploration of the legacies of colonialism, globalization, and African and diasporic cultural traditions.“ I loved the Subterranean series (a stunning fusion of woman and nature) and was moved by Mutu’s work on the Rwanda genocide which is displayed on a ‘wounded wall’ full of bullet holes rubbed with blood-red pigment. Reminded me of Gaza.

noma sculpture garden

yesterday afternoon at the sculpture garden, new orleans museum of art: ‘the twelve-acre sculpture garden at NOMA is one of the most important sculpture installations in the united states, with over 90 sculptures situated on a beautifully landscaped site among meandering footpaths, reflecting lagoons, spanish moss-laden 200-year-old live oaks, mature pines, magnolias, camellias, and pedestrian bridges.’ the sculptures mesh beautifully with their environment and the moss-covered oaks seem ghostly, dream-like, unreal.

a trip to the kolaj institute

today i got to meet madera rogers-henry of the recycle project and ric kasini kadour of the kolaj institute – a side of new orleans, its art scene, and people i’d love to learn more about. yummy brunch at who dat coffee and fabulous dinner at N7. drove to riverbend (violet) and passed thru this pecan tree tunnel. this morning we saw wonderful views of the city from crescent park. nola has such a chill, artsy vibe. but u know what truly aligned things for me in a big way? the free palestine graffiti i found all over the city. i’d love to create art here!

A Thin Wall in Ahmedabad, India

Screenings of A Thin Wall are coming up in Ahmedabad, India! Pls attend if you are in the area. Repost from @arthshila_ahmedabad:

Arthshila Ahmedabad’s Film Showcase this week features A Thin Wall by Mara Ahmed

A Thin Wall is a documentary about memory, reconciliation, and the Partition of India. It focuses on a unique event but derives lessons that remain urgently relevant today.

23 Feb 2024 | 5:30 pm
24 – 25 Feb 2024 | 11:30 am

Venue: Arthshila Ahmedabad, 2-G, opposite Ahmedabad Management Association, Panjrapol, Ambawadi – 380015

A Thin Wall in Islamabad

Ready for a post screening discussion and Q&A this morning at 8:30am, following a screening of A Thin Wall at @theblackholeislamabad where it was 6:30pm. Great convo with Osama Malik, who made this event happen, followed by brilliant questions from the audience. They had to do with nation states, porous borders, the imagining of alternative futures, and my own personal views about the partition. TBH is a non-profit that strives to be an open-to-all educational and cultural space in Islamabad. Such a pleasure to connect with incredible people and places in Pakistan

Forgot to take a screenshot when on Zoom, but here is the YouTube video

Check out the stunning chalk art in Islamabad

Support Nadine’s GoFundMe

As we watch daily war crimes unfold in Gaza, it’s sometimes hard not to feel helpless – not to be able to stop the atrocities or help people on the ground in a direct way. Here is one such opportunity. I have been posting poems by Palestinian poets every other day since December. One of those beautiful poems, Whispers of Resistance, was written by Gaza poet and writer Nadine Murtaja when she was 18 years old. It was read by my friend Zoe Lawlor. Nadine is 20 years old now. She was studying at the school of dental medicine in Gaza when everything turned to dust last October. She wants desperately to leave Gaza and continue her studies in Egypt. She has put together this gofundme campaign while living in hell and under constant attack. Pls consider donating anything you can and share widely. It’s a way to intercede directly, assure her safety, and make her dreams come true.

Here is the link.

[This is the picture Nadine sent me for the poetry archive, before Gaza was decimated by the Israeli army and its mercenaries]

My work in Photo Trouvee Magazine

Spotlight on issue 12 featured artist Mara Ahmed. “My art practice focuses on crossing borders and dismantling political and cultural boundaries. I work in multiple disciplines and narrative formats to tell marginalized stories and build community. The personal and political are intertwined in my practice. For example, the experimental short film, Le Mot Juste (2021), which was selected for an exhibition by Chicago’s South Asia Institute, is a fusion of autobiography, film, and dance. It spotlights three languages: Urdu, French, and English. In the analog and digital collage series, This Heirloom (2012-2014) which has been widely exhibited in New York and California, I recreated my own history by using old black and white photographs sourced from my family archive. In conjunction with my NYSCA-funded film, Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation (2023), I created three collages that subvert the colonial male gaze in found postcards from the British Raj (early 1900s). My aim was to rewrite history by relocating South Asian women from derelict studios, where they had been subjected to Orientalist fantasies, and reconnecting them to their roots. I placed the women in their native cities, adorned with architectural details and built with Indian textiles.”

Ahmed launches Warp & Weft Palestine

From Mariam Sandhu: My dear friend, fellow artist, activist, filmmaker and humanitarian Mara Ahmed has expanded a project started in 2020 entitled “Warp & Weft” to highlight the voices of the Palestinian people and the horrific situation that is unfolding in front of the entire world’s eyes. It is a compilation of Palestinian poems given voice by fellow activists and artists. I am just one ordinary human asked to participate – join us in raising the voices of the Palestinian people by following her IG account @Warpandweftarchive

Read the article by Rajesh Barnabas in the Anarchist Federation

A Thin Wall at the Partition Museum in Delhi

There will be a screening of our film “A Thin Wall” at the Partition Museum in Delhi on January 27th. Pls attend if you are in the area:

The Partition Museum presents a film screening of “A Thin Wall,” a documentary about memory, history and the possibility of reconciliation, with co-producer Surbhi Dewan who will be in conversation with a panel consisting of author Dinesh Shrinet, film critic Murtaza Ali Khan and poet Roshni Gupta. The discussion will be moderated by educator Pallavi Singh.

The screening and discussion will be held on Saturday, 27th January, from 10:30am to 1:30pm at the Dara Shukoh Auditorium, Partition Museum, Delhi.

Registration is needed.

Date: Saturday, 27th January

Time: 10:30am to 1:30pm

Location: Dara Shukoh Library, inside Dr. BR Ambedkar University, Lothian Road

Queries: eventsdslb@gmail.com

Website: www.partitionmuseum.org