Sara Mameni – curator of the Snail Fever exhibition showing at The Third Line gallery in Dubai from June 22 to July 28 – almost didn’t end up working in the art world.
“As a teenager I wanted to be a chemist,” she says with the hint of a smile in her voice. “But things changed after I took a graphic design course. I dived headlong into the art world after that and I’ve never looked back.”
Mameni, who is currently completing a PhD dissertation about contemporary art in the Middle East with a special focus on artists in post-revolutionary Iran and the diaspora, says that while she likes to draw and photograph she prefers dealing with art from an academic point of view. “For me curating or writing about art is a creation in itself because I’m discovering interpretations and ideas that help me figure things out. That’s what I think art is; an individual’s way of understanding and making sense of one’s surroundings and world.”
With Snail Fever I wanted to explore… the intersection between art and music. For this exhibition I approached artists that were using Middle Eastern musicians as the starting point in their work.
The idea behind the exhibition came from… the death of the legendary Egyptian singer Abdel-Halim Hafez in 1977 from bilharzia or ‘snail fever’. For many he symbolically marked the end of the ‘Golden Age’ of Arabic music although, going back to the early 1940s, this era sounded through the voices of classical singers like Umm Kulthum, Abdel-Wahab, Farid Al Atrash and Fairouz. I wanted the exhibition to explore the relationships the region has with music through art and even, in some Middle Eastern countries, how music and entertainment can be seen as a disease or virus. In this exhibition music is made visual; scaled into words and images. These artists present the body of musicians in their works; invoking musicians who never die or those who become alive only through death.
My favourite type of art… deals with socially-based thoughts and ideas that challenge the norm. For me art needs to be conceptually rigorous with an interesting perspective.
My favourite space... is reading areas, like libraries, or museums. They give you space, literally, to think and be with yourself.
I would love to see... Turkish conqueror Mehmed II personified on a camera. I like the idea of photographing old kings. I’m very interested in royal portraiture.
If I could travel anywhere I would… go to Istanbul. I grew up in Cyprus and visited Istanbul as a child but I haven’t been back for a very long time. Istanbul has a magnetism that attracts me, not to mention the city’s rich history.
My dream is… being able to live as I am living now. I feel good about where I am at the moment. I would also like to embrace the quiet moments in life more; be content with boredom. It may sound strange but I think a state of boredom is sometimes the only time one can be aware of the present.
For more information on Snail Fever visit www.thethirdline.com or call 04 341 1367
