Archive for the ‘the literary’ Category

‘i am running in ramallah and it is painful…’ in manifesta journal #14 online & at genk

April 24, 2012

I am running in Ramallah and it is in audio in the current issue of Manifesta Journal #14 which you can read online here, download the complete pdf here, or go straight to the Translated By pages here. Scroll down to where it says ‘You pick a random number’ and 3, etc., and listen to the audio of my excerpt. All this running makes it a bit less painful -and In Ramallah, Running proper will be here soon!

Do have a look at MJ14 edited by Rasha Salti et al and with some great sections; conversation with Naeem Mohaimen, and  one on Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Lebanese Rocket Society, the main monument of which stands today in a public square in downtown Sharjah -a SAF commission from 2010′s Biennial. Manifesta as such kicks off in Genk, Belgium this year of course; end of May slash start of June. Be there!

‘i am running in ramallah and it is painful…’ at SALT galata 06.04.12-08.07.12

April 24, 2012

Translated By in a new configuration and new location. I’ve not made it yet but hope I might. There is also a new version of the book, edited by Shumon, Charles and Suna Kafadar and designed by Zak. I’ve not seen it yet, etc.!

Meanwhile, In Ramallah, Running has been painful too, but advances are promised by the publisher very soon now and I will of course share confirmed publication and other dates when I have them. Meanwhile, very good bound proofs are available for review and related purposes. Contacts are here in the pdf button at the top. Be in touch!

notes from a meeting, artists on the frontier; resident or nomad? [day two pt2]

April 23, 2012

Sejla Kameric 1395 Days on the Frontier Photo G Mannes-Abbott

CLICK on image for more…

notes from a meeting, on throwing forth – artists and audiences [day two pt1]

April 23, 2012

Murtaza Vali Artists & Audiences Photo G Mannes-Abbott

CLICK on image for more…

on in ramallah, running – cover artwork, advance info., etc.

March 2, 2012

In Ramallah, Running cover artwork – click on image to expand

In Ramallah, Running

Guy Mannes-Abbott

Edited by Guy Mannes-Abbott and Samar Martha

Introduction by Jean Fisher

Contributions from Jananne al-Ani, Francis Alÿs, Najwan Darwish, Emily Jacir, Olaf Nicolai, Paul Noble, Khalil Rabah, Adania Shibli, Mark Titchner, Sharif Waked.

Co-produced by ArtSchool Palestine & Sharjah Art Foundation

Published by Black Dog

“I read it in one breath. A cunning simplicity of writing the complexity of today’s Palestine, through the alleys, roads, streets, hills, valleys, days and evenings in and around Ramallah, charged me with love of the art of writing, of Palestine… You showed me my place and made me hear my story. I loved the piece without limits.”

Mourid Barghouti, Palestinian Poet and author of classics memoirs; I Saw Ramallah & I Was Born There, I Was Born Here.

In Ramallah, Running represents Guy Mannes-Abbott’s uniquely personal encounter with Palestine, interweaving short, poetic texts with exploratory essays. International artists and prominent writers have been invited to respond both directly and indirectly to the texts with newly commissioned works.

The principal text is a series in 14 parts, alternating running within the limits of the city and walking out from it to, along, beyond and off limits, discovering how insidiously mobile those limits are under Occupation. With singular style and compelling force, Mannes-Abbott generates a very special intimacy with a rarely seen or experienced Palestine; the actual place itself, the people in their place.

Jean Fisher contributes a substantial introductory essay, while the poet and critic Najwan Darwish and novelist Adania Shibli have written further captivating responses. Visual contributions include a project linked to a pair of paintings by Francis Alÿs, drawings of stoney aridity with ambiguous structures by Paul Noble, and a searingly intimate journal-based piece by Emily Jacir. Jananne al-Ani, Khalil Rabah and Mark Titchner contribute varying photography-based projects focused on the place and its relationship to the body and word. Olaf Nicolai contributes an angular text-based project and Sharif Waked highlights the abysmal ambiguities of the political context.

In Ramallah, Running
Paperback
160 pages
32 colour plus b/w ills
26.0 x 19.0 cm
10.20 x 7.5 in
ISBN 978 1 907317 67 5

NB: Advance proofs of the book have arrived and are really quite beautiful (more…)

on a frieze review of ‘the country of the blind…’ with CAMP at folkestone triennial 2011

December 28, 2011

Issue cover

Issue 143 November-December 2011 

2011 Folkestone Triennial

VARIOUS VENUES, FOLKESTONE, UK

Scroll down for review…

[NB Collaborations are a particular, demanding and beautiful form of work which I seem to have developed a taste for, at least in a visual art context and since 1997!

2011 was a year of varying forms of artful collaboration, each very special but none quite so intimate as this one for me; how it came about, whom it involves and the result of our efforts. To avoid the obvious-but-hideous potential problems of collaboration, a certain more or less unspoken [else endlessly detailed!] but deeply-shared approach to all-things essential is elemental. (more…)

on the comma, between ramallah and running and everything else

December 23, 2011

In Ramallah, Running due Feb. 28th 2012

Gertrude Stein didn’t think much of commas, you remember? I think a lot of Gertrude’s work and Gertrude herself, as Fruit Store regulars will know, but disagree with her about the comma.

Commas break-up, complicate, deepen, add dimension to statements and any prose that takes ‘sense’ for granted. They elucidate, make-difficult, render actual complexity. The comma in In Ramallah, Running does these and many other things for me…

Above is a graphic rendering of a tiny part of the cover-image of the book [actual cover image coming soon], in which the sticking-out comma sticks out!

Commas are inconvenient, never quite fit, force you to notice that which you might not, condense and disrupt [presumed, heh Adania?] sense, etc. They are abyss and peak, add crucial [a]rhythms and make for the elliptical.

Writing without these things is almost literally nothing…

on translated by, biggin’ japan at cca kitakyushu until 20 jan 2012

December 12, 2011

Translated By – London 2011

Translated By, Shumon and Charles’ exhibition of audio recordings of writing about place by a range of writers including myself, with a short excerpt from In Ramallah, Running  in the form of cut-together running texts, is currently on show at CCA KITAKYUSHU Ogura Gallery December 12, 2011 – January 20, 2012. (more…)

on peter reading, poet, died 17 november 2011

December 9, 2011

CLICK on image for more at www.lannan.org

on my review of mourid barghouti’s i was born there… in today’s Independent

November 4, 2011

The Independent

  

I Was Born There, I Was Born Here, By Mourid Barghouti, trans. Humphrey Davies

GUY MANNES-ABBOTT | FRIDAY 04 NOVEMBER 2011

Mourid Barghouti’s first volume of memoir, I Saw Ramallah, is a classic of the genre and a uniquely clear-eyed account of returning home after 30 years of serial expulsion. Barghouti is also the poet of displacement in general as well as its specific Palestinian form. In between the first and this second volume of memoir came Midnight & Other Poems – a first selection from many volumes of his poetry.

I Saw Ramallah wove a life of enforced absences into a moment of return to that city and the author’s home village of Deir Ghassanah in 1996, with prose of poetic concision. It ended with Barghouti recrossing an indelibly memorialised bridge over the Jordan river to collect a permit for his son Tamim, so they could return together. “He will see it. He will see me in it, and we shall ask all the questions after that.”

I Was Born… is that collection of “questions” (more…)


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