The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery, the University’s academic museum, is hosting an evening of short film screenings, followed by curator-led tours and a Suhoor meal on May 23, as part of the public program of its current exhibition,
Permanent Temporariness: Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti.
Taking place on Wednesday, May 23, Emirati artist Hind Mezaina will introduce the selection of films, to include:
Irregulars by Fabio Palmieri
Documentary | Duration 8:55 | In English with English captions
Against a tellingly hypnotic factory backdrop, a refugee encapsulates the global immigration crisis in his own wrenching words. Each year, thousands of people try to enter other countries. They flee from war, persecution and poverty.
Measures of Uncertainty by Jawad Al Malhi
Documentary | Duration 4:28 | No dialogue
Measures of Uncertainty was shot in Shufhat Refugee Camp, in occupied East Jerusalem. The camp has a population of over 100,000 people and is situated less than 5km from the walls of the old city of Jerusalem. Filmmaker Al Malhi has himself grown up in the camp and has continually tasked himself with creating representations of the everyday life of his community through photography, video, painting and sculpture.
Dahiet Al Bareed, District of the Post Office by Turner Prize shortlisted artist Rosalind Nashashibi
Duration 7:00
One slow, hot afternoon, a neighbourhood built to be a utopian suburb for employees of the Palestinian Post Office now becomes a lawless no-man’s-land between occupied East Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Speaking for Oneself…Speaking for Others… Maqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument) by Jayce Solloum and Elia Suleiman
Duration: 45:00
With a combination of film, documentary, news coverage and excerpts of "live" footage shot in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Introduction to the End of an Argument explores representations of the Middle East, Arab culture and the Palestinian people by the West.
When: Wednesday 23 May, 9 pm
Where: The screenings will take place at the NYUAD Arts Center. Afterwards, there will be curator-led tours of Permanent Temporariness, followed by a Suhoor meal at the NYUAD Art Gallery.
Furthermore, as Permanent Temporariness will be closing on June 9, the coming weeks are the last chance to see the first institutional retrospective of artists Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, examining the timely themes of migration, “refugee-ness”, and permanence vs impermanence.
The exhibition features seven installations, three of which are beyond the gallery walls. It reactivates five of the artists’ signature installations to date, including The Concrete Tent, Common Assembly, Ramallah Syndrome, The Book of Exile, and The Tree School. Two of the artworks - Living Room and Refugee Heritage - were developed specifically for this show, from the artists’ current research projects.
Permanent Temporariness is guest-curated by NYUAD faculty Salwa Mikdadi, who is among the foremost historians of modern art from the Arab world. It is co-curated by Bana Kattan, NYUAD Art Gallery Curator, who recently co-curated the exhibition Invisible Threads: Technology and its Discontents (NYUAD) and But We Cannot See Them: Tracing a UAE Art Community 1988-2008 (NYUAD).
Permanent Temporariness
Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti
NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
On display until June 9, 2018
Visitor hours: Monday – Saturday, 12 pm – 8 pm (closed Sundays)
Admission: The NYUAD Art Gallery is free and open to the public
