A People’s Tribunal: 28 Exhibits

October 19, 2019, 4-6PM
Twelve Gates Arts, 106 N. 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106
This is an intimate event with limited seating. Please RSVP to heklerke@gmail.com.

Performers: Amina Ahmed, Dena Al-Adeeb, Fadaa Ali, Yaroub Al-Obaidi, Nada El-Kouny, Hatif Farhan, Kazem Ghouchani, Maryam Jahanbin, Luma Jasim, Mohammed Okab, Hussein Smko

Organizers: Dena Al-Adeeb, Shimrit Lee, Nataša Prljević, Farideh Sakhaeifar

PRESS: Nirupa Umapathy for Warscapes: War on Terror Goes on Trial

28 Exhibits is a performative tribunal that brings together a group of artists, activists, and scholars to account for the impact of global counterinsurgency doctrine. With storytelling, installation, and song as "evidence," the tribunal interrogates the rhetoric that has fueled the lasting trauma of the U.S. War in Iraq, while building a collective archive that fosters alternative spaces of restitution for evaluating the war on terror.

Our starting point is Twenty-Eight Articles, a 2006 paper written by Australian strategist David Kilcullen used to advise General David Petraeus, who helped design the Iraq War troop surge. The “Twenty-Eight Articles”, a nod to T.E. Lawrence’s “twenty-seven articles” on tribal desert warfare from 1917, describes counterinsurgency as “armed social work,” and urges the modern counter-insurgent to “engage the women, beware the children,” “know the turf,” “remember the global audience,” and above all, “keep the initiative.” The document was later formalized as an appendix to the FM 3-24, the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency doctrine, and has been in use by U.S., British, Canadian, Dutch, Iraqi and Afghan armies as a training document. 28 Exhibits will be set up like a trial, in which excerpts of Kilcullen's articles will be critically evaluated through artistic intervention.

28 Exhibits is an extension of Clear-Hold-Build, the exhibition which brings together artists to survey the impact of counterinsurgency over the past seven decades. Exhibition is curated by Shimrit Lee, Joshua Nierodzinski and Nataša Prljević of HEKLER, an artist-run collaborative platform that fosters critical examination of hospitality and conflict.

Photo credit: Twelve Gates Arts and Sahar Irshad.

Special thanks to Jelena Prljević, Sadra Shabab, and Maryam Ghoreishi for their support.

Tribunal naroda: 28 dokaza

19. oktobar 2019, 16-18h
Tvelve Gates Arts, 106 N. 2nd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Ovo je intimni događaj sa ograničenim brojem sedišta. Prijavite se na heklerke@gmail.com.

Izvođači/ce: Amina Ahmed, Dena Al-Adeeb, Fadaa Ali, Iaroub Al-Obaidi, Nada El-Kouni, Hatif Farhan, Kazem Ghouchani, Mariam Jahanbin, Luma Jasim, Mohammed Okab, Hussein Smko

Organizatorke: Dina Al-Adib, Šimrit Li, Nataša Prljević, Farideh Sakhaeifar

Recenzija: Nirupa Umapati za Warscapes: Rat protiv terora ide na sud

28 dokaza je performativni tribunal koji okuplja grupu umetnika/ca, aktivista/kinja i naučnika/ca kako bi objasnili uticaj globalne protivpobynjeničke doktrine. Pripovedanjem, umetničkom instalacijom i pesmom kao „dokazima“, tribunal ispituje retoriku koja je podstakla trajnu traumu američkog rata u Iraku, dok gradi kolektivnu arhivu koja neguje alternativne prostore restitucije za procenu rata protiv terorizma.

Naša polazna tačka je Dvadeset osam članaka, rad iz 2006. koji je napisao australijski strateg Dejvid Kilkulen, korišćen za savetovanje generala Dejvida Petreusa, koji je pomogao u osmišljavanju naleta trupa u Iračkom ratu. „Dvadeset osam članaka“, oslanjajući se na T.E. Lorensovih „dvadeset sedam članaka” o plemenskom pustinjskom ratu iz 1917. opisuje protivpobunjeništvo kao „oružani društveni rad” i urgira moderne protivpobunjenike da „angažuju žene, čuvaju se dece”, „znaju teren”, „zapamte globalnu publiku“, i iznad svega, „zadrže inicijativu“. Dokument je kasnije formalizovan kao dodatak FM 3-24, protivpobunjeničkoj doktrini američke vojske, a koristili su ga američke, britanske, kanadske, holandske, iračke i avganistanske vojske kao dokument za obuku. 28 dokaza će biti postavljeni kao tribunal, u kojem će se odlomci Kilcullenovih članaka kritički ocenjivati kroz umetničku intervenciju.

28 dokaza je produžetak izložbe Očisti-zadrži-izgradi, koja okuplja umetnike i umetnice koji svojim radom pokušavaju napraviti pregled uticaja protivpobunjeništva poslednjih sedam decenija. Izložbu su kustosirali Šimrit Li, Džošua Nirodžinski i Nataša Prljević iz HEKLER-a, kolaboracione platforme koju vode umetnice i umetnici, koja podstiče kritičko ispitivanje gostoprimstva i sukoba.

Foto: Twelve Gates Arts i Sahar Irshad.

Posebno se zahvaljujemo Jeleni Prljević, Sadri Šabab i Mariam Goreši na podršci.

PARTICIPANTS / WITNESSES

Amina Ahmed, born in East Africa and of Kutchi-Indian Turkic heritage, grew up in England and has lived in Iran and the USA. She specialized in Islamic and Traditional Arts at The Royal College of Art. The practice of geometry grounds her drawings. Selected exhibitions include: Nottingham Contemporary and the ShowRoom, London, Queens Museum, Alwan for the Arts, NYC, Clark House Initiative, Lakeeran Gallery, The Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai,Twelve Gates Gallery and The Fiber Philadelphia’s International Biennial.

Dena Al-Adeeb is an artist-scholar-activist born in Baghdad, Iraq. Dena creates performative, relational works, dedicated to participatory art, socially engaged projects, and collaborative engagements.  Dena is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the American Studies Department at the University of California, Davis. She received her Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Culture and Representation track, from New York University. She has been a resident artist at Light Work and Mana Contemporary and a recipient of numerous awards including the Knight Foundation and Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Dena’s work has been exhibited internationally, and her writing has appeared in a diversity of publications.

Fadaa Ali is an Iraqi-American artist that lives in Philadelphia. She was born in Baghdad, Iraq. After the war on Iraq she moved to Jordan in 2004 where she lived for 5 years until her move to the United States.In her own words: “An American woman of Iraqi origin, since my childhood I have an art talent, but I haven’t had a chance to develop it. My studies were far from art, where I studied to be a pharmacy technician when I came to America. Luckily I had the opportunity to work in art in Philadelphia with Penn Museum and Radio Silence with Mural Arts Project. I have the talents to work with antiques and integrate colors to give a different scenery.”

Yaroub Al Obaidi is a socially-engaged Iraqi-born artist, based in Philadelphia since 2016. He is a designer, research, and author. He holds a master’s degree in design from the College of Fine Arts in Baghdad, where he also served as a lecturer from 2004 to 2007, and a second master’s in socially engaged art from Moore College of Arts and Design in Philadelphia. He has participated in artist Michael Rakowitz’s Radio Silence podcast project, Swarthmore College’s Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary project, and Warrior Writers. He is currently a global guide and international speaker at Penn Museum. 

Nada El-Kouny is a former Egyptian journalist, current film producer for animated documentaries, and PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at Rutgers University whose work investigates the role of infrastructure in citizenship-claiming and state-making in rural Egypt, through a joint ethnographic and historical lens. 

Hatif Farhan is an Iraqi writer and photographer, based in Baghdad, Iraq. Farhan was awarded the creativity photography award in 2015 from The Eyes of Culture and Arts Foundation. His photos have been published in a number of Arabic magazines and books. Hatif’s work explores the impact of time on history, and gives special attention to marginalized people and those displaced by war and crisis.

Kazem Ghouchani is a Development and Marketing professional with over 4 years of experience in community building and cultural programming. Kazem holds an MBA from Hult International Business School with a passion for developing cultural programs for grassroots initiatives and communities. Promoting social justice has always been a driving force that has pushed them to look for ways to use art as a medium to build diverse communities. As a queer athiest from Tehran, Kazem currently serves as a Development Manager of Emruz Festival and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

Maryam Jahanbin is situated in America, as an immigrant of Kutchi-Iranian heritage, born in the UK. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in Religion with a concentration in Ethics, Society, and Representation.

Luma Jasim is an interdisciplinary Iraqi-born artist based in Brooklyn, NY, and Boise, ID. Jasim left Iraq three years after the invasion, and lived in Istanbul, Turkey before immigrating to the United States. Jasim's art deals with war, violence, and her experiences with immigration and acculturation. In her artwork, she uses the personal to address the political and activate the viewer's curiosity. She often reconstructs her memories, traumas, and thoughts on displacement, belonging, and strangeness in various mediums, including mixed media painting, performance, video, and animation.

Mohammed Okab was born in the city of Ur in Iraq, known today as Dhi Qar, in 1953. He grew up in Baghdad, where he finished high school and worked as a bookseller in the cultural and literary heart of the city. He also began painting, a skill which he still uses to transmit his views into visual artwork. In 2013, he was admitted to the U.S. as a refugee, and became a citizen in 2019. 

Hussein Smko is a self-trained dancer and choreographer of Arab/Kurdish roots who was spotted by the Battery Dance Company through social media in 2014. Trained via Skype, Smko emigrated to the United States in 2016 and began his residency with Battery Dance as the first recipient of the Adel Euro Campaign for Dancers Seeking Refuge (2017). Since then he has performed at the Battery Dance Festival and as part of the company's residency with the Fort Wayne Dance Collective. He has taught for Battery Dance in New York City public schools, at the New York Public Library, and at USC in Los Angeles, for a Spoken Word and Dance program with Iraqi journalist Riyadh Mohammed.

HEKLER is an artist-run platform that fosters the critical examination of hospitality and conflict through collaborative programming, pedagogy and archiving. It operates as an expansive transnational collective of cultural workers in and outside of the United States, founded by Nataša Prljević, Joshua Nierodzinski, and Jelena Prljević.

UČESNICI/CE / SVEDOCI/KINJE

Amina Ahmed, rođena u istočnoj Africi kuči-indijskog turskog nasleđa, odrasla je u Engleskoj i živela u Iranu i SAD. Specijalizirala je islamsku i tradicionalnu umetnost na Kraljevskom koledžu umetnosti. Njeni crteži se zasnivaju na praksi geometrije. Odabrane izložbe: Nottingham Contemporary i ShowRoom, London, Queens Museum, Alwan for the Arts, NYC, Clark House Initiative, Lakeeran Gallery, The Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai,Twelve Gates Gallery i The Fiber Philadelphia’s International Biennial.

Dina Al-Adib je umetnica-naučna aktivistkinja rođena u Bagdadu, Irak. Dena stvara performativne, relacione radove, posvećene participativnoj umetnosti, društveno angažovanim projektima i saradničkim angažmanima. Dena je postdoktorska saradnica na Odseku za američke studije na Univerzitetu Kalifornije, Dejvis. Doktorirala je Bliskoistočne i islamske studije, kulturu i reprezentaciju, na Univerzitetu u Njujorku. Bila je rezidentna umetnica u Light Work i Mana Contemporary, dobitnica je brojnih nagrada uključujući fondacije Knight i Kenneth Rainin. Dinin rad je izlagan na međunarodnom nivou, a njeni tekstovi objavljivani u raznim publikacijama.

Fada Ali je iračko-američka umetnica koja živi u Filadelfiji. Rođena je u Bagdadu, Irak. Posle rata u Iraku 2004. preselila se u Jordan gde je živela 5 godina do preseljenja u Sjedinjene Države. Po sopstvenim rečima: „Američka žena iračkog porekla, od detinjstva imam umetnički talenat, ali nisam imala priliku da ga razvijem. Moje studije su bile daleko od umetnosti, školovala sam se za farmaceutsku tehničarku kada sam došala u Ameriku. Srećom, imala sam priliku da radim u umetnosti u Filadelfiji u Pen muzeju i Radio Silence sa Mural Arts Project. Imam talente da radim sa antikvitetima i integrišem boje kako uvela promene u trenutni pejzaž.”

Jarub Al Obaidi je društveno angažovani umetnik rođen u Iraku, sa sedištem u Filadelfiji od 2016. On je dizajner, istraživač i autor. Magistrirao je dizajn na Fakultetu lepih umetnosti u Bagdadu, gde je takođe bio predavač od 2004. do 2007. godine, a drugi master je stekao iz društveno angažovane umetnosti na Moore College of Arts and Design u Filadelfiji. Učestvovao je u podcast projektu umetnika Majkla Rakovica Radio Silence, projektu Prijatelji, mir i svetilište Svartmor koledža i Varrior Vriters. Trenutno je globalni vodič i međunarodni govornik u Penn muzeju.

Nada El-Kouni je bivša egipatska novinarka, sadašnja filmska producentica animiranih dokumentarnih filmova i kandidatkinja za doktorske studije kulturne antropologije na Univerzitetu Rutgers čiji rad istražuje ulogu infrastrukture u traženju državljanstva i stvaranju države u ruralnom Egiptu, kroz zajedničku etnografsku i istorijsku prizmu.

Hatif Farhan je irački pisac i fotograf, sa sedištem u Bagdadu, Irak. Farhanu je 2015. godine dodeljena nagrada za kreativnu fotografiju od Fondacije Oči kulture i umetnosti. Njegove fotografije su objavljene u brojnim arapskim časopisima i knjigama. Hatifov rad istražuje uticaj vremena na istoriju i posebnu pažnju posvećuje marginalizovanim ljudima i onima koji su raseljeni ratom i krizom.

Kazem Gučani je stručnjak za razvoj i marketing sa više od 4 godine iskustva u izgradnji zajednice i kulturnom programu. Kazem ima MBA na Hult International Business School sa strašću za razvoj kulturnih programa za lokalne inicijative i zajednice. Promovisanje socijalne pravde je uvek bila pokretačka snaga koja ih je gurala da traže načine da iskoriste umetnost kao medij za izgradnju različitih zajednica. Kao kvir ateista iz Teherana, Kazem trenutno radi kao menadžer razvoja Emruz festivala i Rattlestick Dramskog pozorišta.

Mariam Jahanbin se nalazi u Americi, kao imigrant Kutchi-iranskog nasleđa, rođena u Velikoj Britaniji. Diplomirala je na Brin Mavr koledžu religije sa koncentracijom etike, društva i zastupanja.

Luma Jasim je interdisciplinarna umetnica rođena u Iraku sa sedištem u Bruklinu, Njujork, i Bojsu, ID. Jasim je napustila Irak tri godine nakon invazije, živela je u Istanbulu u Turskoj pre nego što je emigrirala u Sjedinjene Države. Jasimina umetnost se bavi ratom, nasiljem i njenim iskustvima sa imigracijom i akulturacijom. U svom umetničkom delu ona koristi lično da adresira političko i aktivira radoznalost gledalaca. Često rekonstruiše svoja sećanja, traume i razmišljanja o raseljavanju, pripadnosti i neobičnosti u različitim medijima, uključujući slikarstvo, mešane medije, performans, video i animaciju.

Mohamed Okab je rođen 1953. u gradu Ur u Iraku, danas poznatom kao Dhi Kar. Odrastao je u Bagdadu, gde je završio srednju školu i radio kao prodavac knjiga u kulturnom i književnom srcu grada. Takođe je počeo da slika, veštinu koju još uvek koristi da prenese svoje stavove u vizuelna umetnička dela. Godine 2013. primljen je u SAD kao izbeglica, a državljanin je postao 2019. 

Husein Smko je samouki igrač i koreograf arapskih/kurdskih korena koga je Battery Dance kompanija primetila preko društvenih medija 2014. Obučen preko Skajpa, Smko je emigrirao u Sjedinjene Države 2016. godine i započeo svoju rezidenciju sa Batteri Dance kao prvi primalac Adelove Evro kampanje za plesače koji traže utočište (2017). Od tada je nastupao na Batteri Dance festivalu i kao deo rezidencije kompanije sa Fort Vaine Dance kolektivom. Predavao je za Batteri Dance u javnim školama u Njujorku, u njujorškoj javnoj biblioteci i na USC u Los Anđelesu, za program Izgovorene reči i plesa sa iračkim novinarom Rijadom Mohamedom.

HEKLER je platforma koju vode umetnice i umetnici koja podstiče kritičko ispitivanje gostoprimstva i sukoba kroz korealizovanje programa, pedagogiju i arhiviranje. Deluje kao ekspanzivni transnacionalni kolektiv kulturnih radnika u i van Sjedinjenih Država, čiji su osnivači/ce Nataša Prljević, Džošua Nierodžinski i Jelena Prljević.