Hazem Harb: ‘My Heart Is Still in Gaza’

An analysis of how Gazan artist Hazem Harb is responding to the Israel-Gaza War, and the shift in his practice away from archival strategies to bodily, expressive modes. Afterall, issue 57, Autumn 2024

The Contribution of Sudan to Sharjah’s Early Art Scene

A discussion of the impact of Sudanese artists on the development of art in Sharjah, with attention paid to the question of national identity – so important to the Khartoum School, but put into question in the UAE.

Forthcoming in Modern Art Histories from the Arabian Peninsula (ed. Nada Shabout, Sarah Rogers,
Suheyla Takesh), American University of Cairo Press

Al Meftaha Arts Village: A Site of Collective Art Practice

Al Meftaha Arts Village in Asir was Saudi Arabia’s first art education and exhibition site. Uniquely democratic and run by its members, Al Meftaha gave studio and exhibition space to Saudi artists, including the future members of Edge of Arabia: Ahmed Mater, Abdulnasser Gharem, and Ashraf Fayadh.

Forthcoming in Chronicle of the 1980s: Representational Pressures, Departures, and Beginnings in the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (eds. Anneka Lenssen, Nada Shabout, Sarah Rogers)

Applied Art? Feryal Matar and Art Education at the Sharjah Women’s Association

Working at the Sharjah Women's Association, Feryal Matar taught art to generations of Emirati and expatriate women. This article presents the first comprehensive look at her teaching and her artwork, and questions the status of one of the most intriguing parts of her practice – her craft work. Afterall, issue 55/56, Winter 2024

Add Oil to Art: Kitsch in the UAE Art World from 2003 to 2018

A dissection of kitsch and consumer goods as unifying elements among a population divided by languages, ethnicities, and wealth. In Experiences of Oil (ed. Anne Szefer Karlsen and Helga Nyman), Trondheim: Museumsforlaget, 2022

Reconstructing Saudi: A Look into the Short Window of Artist-Led Spaces and Organisations in a Country on the Verge of Change

In the mid-2010s Saudi Arabia, particularly Jeddah, was a site of grassroots art production and exhibition. This text looks at the art and shows of that time. Afterall, issue 49, spring/summer 2020

Economies of Futurism: An analysis of the funding structures and reception of cybernetics in the 1960s versus futurist initiatives in the Gulf in the 2000s

A comparative discussion of digital initiatives and Gulf futurism in two cash-flush contexts. Adapt to Survive, London: Hayward Gallery, 2019

Can we still talk about women artists?

This text looks at the discursive material that surrounds exhibitions and artworks to question where works by female artists are identified as works by female artists. Women Artists: Feminism and the Moving Image (ed. Lucy Reynolds), London: IB Tauris, 2019

British National identity in the Video Work of the YBAs

A number of YBAs used the semi-marginalized medium of video to question national identity and British postcolonial status. Artists’ Moving Image in Britain Since 1989 (ed. Erika Balsom, Lucy Reynolds and Sarah Perks), New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019

Affective Iconoclasm: Codes of Labour as a Human Characteristic

A discussion of labour as part of an anthropomorphised code to signal "humanness" in the work of Pierre Huyghe, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, and Jesse Darling. Open Cultural Studies,
2018

From Narcissism to the Dialogic: Identity in Art after the Internet

This texts argues that works of art in an internet context move from the narcissism of video art to a putatively dialogic framework. Afterall, issue 37, Autumn/Winter 2014

Return of the Gothic: Digital Anxiety in the Domestic Sphere

This text looks at works of the so-called post-internet generation to locate deep anxiety around the idea of home and affective relations. e-flux journal, issue 51, January 2014