The Call - from the city into the Biennial from Universes in Universe on Vimeo.
Variations for 10 drummers and an electronic musician fortissimo (ff). Sharjah Biennial programme of sound compositions, conceived by Tarek Atoui.Jumana Manna & Sille Storihle: The Goodness Regime. 2013 from Universes in Universe on Vimeo.
Magdi Mostafa - sound cells: FRIDAYS. 2010 from Universes in Universe on Vimeo.
Wael Shawky: Dictums 10:120. 2011–13 from Universes in Universe on Vimeo.
More than forty works of video, prints, photographs, paintings, sculpture, and installation by international artists delve into the past and explore the present to expose the seductive simplicity of drawing lines as a substitute for learning how to live with each other. Living within and across these lines can be a messy, bloody business but also offers a productive space where new nations, identities, languages, and relationships are forged.
At its core, Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space investigates the historic upheaval of the 1947 partition of India that spawned the nations of Pakistan and later Bangladesh. The exhibition is part of an ongoing project initiated in 2005 by Green Cardamom, a London-based nonprofit arts organization. Expanding on the significance of partition in South Asia, Lines of Control at the Johnson Museum also addresses physical and psychological borders, trauma, and the reconfiguration of memory in other partitioned areas: North and South Korea, Sudan and South Sudan, Israel and Palestine, Ireland and Northern Ireland, Armenia and its diaspora, and questions of indigenous sovereignty in the United States. The exhibition explores the products and remainders of partition and borders characteristic of the modern nation-state, and includes the continued impact of colonization, the physical and psychic violence of displacement, dilemmas of identity and belonging, and questions of commemoration.
Artists represented in the exhibition are Bani Abidi, Francis Alÿs, Sarnath Banerjee, Farida Batool, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Muhanned Cader, Duncan Campbell, Iftikhar Dadi, DAAR, Anita Dube, Taghreed Elsanhouri, Sophie Ernst, Gauri Gill, Shilpa Gupta, Zarina Hashmi, Emily Jacir, Ahsan Jamal, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Amar Kanwar, Noa Lidor, Mario Mabor, Nalini Malani, Naeem Mohaiemen, Tom Molloy, Rashid Rana, Raqs Media Collective, Jolene Rickard, Hrair Sarkissian, Seher Shah, Surekha, Hajra Waheed, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, and Muhammad Zeeshan.
يما مويل الهوا يما مويليا
Oh Mother the sad song …oh mother is my song
(It is a preface usually said to express how much pain the speaker has)
ضرب الخناجر ولا حكم النذل فيا
Hitting by daggers but not being ruled by rascal
ومشيت تحت الشتا والشتا رواني
And I walked under the rain ,and the rain wets me
والصيف لما أتى ولع من نيراني
And when the summer had come , he was burned by my fires
بيضل عمري انفدى ندر للحرية
My life will stay ransom and vow for the freedom
يما مويل الهوا يما مويليا
Oh Mother the sad song …oh mother is my song
يا ليل صاح الندى يشهد على جراحي
Oh night.. the dew hollers and witness on my wounds
وانسل جيش العدا من كل النواحي
And the enemy army attacked from all directions
والليل شاف الردى عم يتعلم بيا
And the night was witness on what the death had done to me
يما مويل الهوا يما مويليا
Oh Mother the sad song …oh mother is my song
بارودة الجبل أعلى من العالي
The mountain rifle is best of the best
مفتح درب الأمل والأمل برجالي
Key of the hope path and the hope depends on the men
يا شعبنا يا بطل أفديك بعينيا
Oh our people oh heroes … my eyes are ransom for you
يما مويل الهوا يما مويليا
Oh Mother the sad song …oh mother is my song
(special thanks to the person who translated this for me)
My father is a certain kind of man.
A few years ago we were in Greece together. He sat on a bench with another man. And they understood each other.
Their Language was their cigarettes,
Their ears grown large with age,
Their noses red from good times and bad times,
What a life we’ve had
Their hands ingrained with dirt from long ago
My father’s a certain kind of man.
And I sometimes wish I was too
(accompanying music: Mrs McGrath: The Sergeant Said)
AT THE JERUSALEM SHOW
'Jack asked me and explained the Jerusalem Show and I said OK because making a performance like this sounded like something I would really like to do. I changed the proposition a little because six hours is a lot and I didn’t want to just make something that focused only on the physical aspects of exhaustion. I chose the form of a triptych. I took this form because it is something that is used in religious art so I wanted to hijack the form because of the association with religious aspects of Jerusalem.
I use a language that exists in normal music but it’s more extreme or more radical. However there is always a continuum. Technically I use basic Max/MSP software which allows me to programme my own applications so I can develop special effects for the drums. The sequence works as if you are flicking a remote control. However, the first part of the triptych was more like a concert because it was not completely random. I had pre-programmed Part I. In the second performance I wanted to gradually discard the tools so that I had less and less tools to express myself with. The third and final part of the triptych will really be complete improvisation. I will have no other forms to help. It will be free drumming for as long as I can play.'
