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…)
Shumon Basar and Jack Persekian Wash Hands…
Jack Persekian’s performance of Nablus Soap at the ICA, as part of the Mathaf’s Interference weekend, was brilliant.
The work takes off from a show he put on with Mona Hatoum back in the early days in Jerusalem. It recounts that earlyness, the basic space, cold and uninviting and the process of arriving at the piece -Present tense [1996]- by Mona H., its installation and the historical context of a disastrous willingness to compromise with Occupation in the form of ‘Oslo’. An apologetic Abu Amar is scratched-in which raised a big laugh and the whole piece is damn fine, not least as testament to Nablus.
As Jack and Shumon talked, the film was paused on one of the many Occupation watchtowers that terrorise the Palestinian Hills, lest any of us forget the bloody stain it represents… (more…)
Excellent piece/interview on The Young Man Was…: Part 1, United Red Army, Naeem Mohaiemen’s film that was first shown at Sharjah Biennial X -and which I wrote about ‘live’ here. Naeem has a page on the film/project here.
Don’t miss the film whenever/wherever it screens. Interesting to see in some relation to Assayas’s surprisingly good biopic Carlos, which is still a very different project obviously [read Jonathan Romney here]. (more…)
In Ramallah, Running by Guy Mannes-Abbott [2011]
I can’t resist posting this image from one of the distributor’s sites for Translated By, there’s a page of other images/details here.
This is a tiny excerpt of the excerpt obviously. As a whole, my short running texts within Ramallah itself alternate with longer walking essays at/in/beyond the limits all around, which multiply and abstract in ways peculiar to this unique Occupation. Hence my attempt to reconjure the actual place, and actual people in their place. The whole text begins as it appears to do here, though this excerpt of 1500 words is made up only of running texts.
The actual book -In Ramallah, Running- is coming together in all its ambitious complexity! (more…)
click HERE to link to notes from a biennial – day one part 2
Translated By
[CLICK image for details]
Featuring Douglas Coupland, Rana Dasgupta, Julien Gracq, Hu Fang, Jonathan Lethem, Tom McCarthy, Guy Mannes Abbott, Sophia Al Maria, Hisham Matar, Adania Shibli and Neal Stephenson
*NB [UPDATE] The accompanying book will be published February 10th, details here and below; (more…)
15.01.2011 – 09.02.2011
Architectural Association Gallery
36 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3ES
Private view event on 14 January 6.30–8.30
Curators Charles Arsène-Henry and Shumon Basar
You’ve entered the room. It looks empty, silent. Vinyl text on the wall, like an album track-listing. Writers’ names instead of bands.
You’ve been given a black pamphlet and an electronic device connected to a pair of headphones.
You’ll put them on. Pick a number. Press play. You look for the same number on the walls. You find it. Next to it, an image. Beside there is a seat. You sit. On a beat up office chair dredged from a river. You listen. And you start travelling. You’re on Atlantic Avenue, between Nevins and Third. It’s Brooklyn. 1971.
The voice stops. You go for another track, another chair, a different place. Now on a little stool, you follow a six-year-old girl’s voice in your ears. You’re lost in the Sheraton Hotel. An Aztec spaceship in Doha’s desert.
It will last for 11 tracks. Through Tripoli, Brixton, Ramallah. Sofia, The Metaverse. Ardennes forest. A garden.
Until West Vancouver. Where the world is ending.
NB I have a text, a small excerpt from In Ramallah, Running 2010, in this show and publication in happy company… details to follow.
I’ll also update during January 2011 with news on the book itself as it progresses towards publication which is now scheduled for October 2011.
