By Barrak Alzaid, Editor
Winter 2013 | ArteZine
This edition of the ArteZine explores connections between kinship structures and art history to reveal methodologies for unearthing narratives erased by market forces and geopolitics. Each essay is anchored in a shifting sense of place that reflects the distances between contributor and site of exploration. The contributions in this issue uniquely enact the work of recuperation and knit together genealogies of art practice beyond standard art historical modes. Fatima Al Qadiri and Monira Al Qadiri model a strategy for young artists to map their own genealogy via testimony and family history through an interview with their mother, renowned Kuwaiti artist Thoraya Al Baqsami. An archival artist project by Amal Khalaf and Nadia Khalaf entitled MICRO-BEIT offers a subversive approach to tracing the ways in which national heritage is imbricated with family legacies. Nida Ghouse takes us beyond the Arab Gulf and crafts a lyrical text that attempts to make meaning of the Mediterranean and its connection to time and memory, delivering a non-linear exposition on madness. Mikhail Karikis’ sonic and visual study of a community of women divers on a small island in the Pacific bears witness to their insistence on sustainable practices operating outside the trend of industrialization and how they are able to reverse traditional gender and economic roles.
In this issue we’ve also adopted a more condensed format than in the past to meet the reading practices of the internet, and to present even more fleshed out and dynamic projects.
About the Author: Barrak Alzaid