Hudood: Rethinking Boundaries
Overview
This publication accompanies Hudood: Rethinking Boundaries, a collaborative exhibition led by SOAS students and held at the SOAS Gallery, is set to take place from July 11 to September 21, 2024. The exhibition introduces contemporary art drawn from the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah with a focus on the overarching theme of "Boundaries" as both a subject and a tool for meaningfully accessing a diverse array of art from the SWANA region.
Edited by: Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, Natasha Morris.
Introductory essays by: Lina Khatib, Natasha Morris,Venetia Porter, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi.
Essays & Interviews by: Chloe-Kate Abel, Shamsa Alnahyan, Elika Blake, Clara Ewert,Safa Kamran, Antonis Kentonis, Suparna Shankaranand Natesan.
Book design: Nathalie ElMir
Barjeel Art Foundation is an independent, Sharjah-based initiative established by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi in 2010 to manage, preserve and exhibit an extensive collection of over 1,200 pieces of Modern and Contemporary Art from North Africa and West Asia. The foundation’s guiding principle is to foster critical dialogue around modern and contemporary art practices, with a focus on artists with Arab heritage internationally. The foundation strives to create an open-ended inquiry that responds to and conveys the nuances inherent to Arab histories beyond the borders of culture and geography. Since its inception, the Foundation has held 40 art exhibitions both locally in the United Arab Emirates, and internationally in cities like Singapore, Paris, London, Berlin, Toronto, New York, Boston, Tampa, New Haven, Amman, Kuwait, Alexandria, Baku and Tehran—allowing global audiences to gain first-hand access to Arab art. Notable collaborations include projects like ‘The Sea Suspended’ at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) in 2016, and ‘Taking Shape: Abstraction From the Arab World, 1950s-1980’ at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University in 2020, which went on to tour four additional venues in the US. The Foundation has also loaned artworks to over 110 institutions globally, including museums like Tate Liverpool and Tate St. Ives, MoMA PS1, The Art Institute of Chicago, Mori Museum, and others.
About the Authors
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi is a columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf states. He is also the Founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, UAE. Sultan was an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow from 2014 to 2016, a practitioner-in- residence at the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University in Spring 2017 and a Yale Greenberg World Fellow in 2018. He was a visiting instructor at the Council of Middle East Studies at Yale University, the Center of Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, the American University of Paris, the Islamic Civilization and Societies program at Boston College, the School of Public Affairs at SciencesPo Paris, the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, the School of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University, the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, New York, and most recently at Bard College Berlin.
Lina Khatib
Lina Khatib is an interdisciplinary expert on the Middle East. Her work spans the worlds of policy, academia, and arts and culture. She has published extensively on visual culture in the region, including the books Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle; Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond; and Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World. She has been Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at SOAS University of London; Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House; Director of the Carnegie Middle East Center at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and before that co-founded and led the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She is also a music impresario; since 2019 she has been a co-founder and co-lead of the World Metal Congress. She occasionally creates and exhibits visual art.
Natasha Morris
Dr Natasha Morris BA, MA, PhD (Courtauld, University of London) is Lecturer in Islamic Arts and a convenor of the Islamic Art module of the Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS. She is also an associate lecturer in the arts of Iran and Islam at the Courtauld Institute. She was previously Myojin-Nadar Project Curator Middle East Art at the British Museum, and co-authored Reflections: art of the Middle East and North Africa (British Museum, 2020) and Honar: The Afkhami Collection of Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art (Phaidon, 2017). She has written extensively on the art of the Middle East for publications including The Oxford Art Journal, The Art Bulletin, Time Out, and The Guardian as well as authoring several exhibition catalogues.
Venetia Porter
Venetia Porter was Senior Curator for Islamic and Contemporary Middle East art at the British Museum (1989-2022) where she is now Honorary Research Fellow. She studied Arabic and Persian and Islamic Art at the University of Oxford, and her PhD from the University of Durham is on the history and architecture of Medieval Yemen. She was the lead curator for the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World, opened 2018. Her research and publications range from Islamic tiles, Yemeni history, Arabic inscriptions and amulets to contemporary art, and include her mother’s autobiography Thea Porter’s scrapbook which she edited (Unicorn Press 2019). Her exhibitions with accompanying publications include Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East (London 2006, Dubai 2008), Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam (2012), Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa (2021) and Amakin, 21,39 Jeddah Arts, 9th edition, (Jeddah and Dhahran 2022). Artists making books: poetry to politics, was published by British Museum Press in 2023.
Chloe-Kate Abel
Chloe-Kate Abel is finishing her postgraduate degree in Curating Cultures at SOAS University, where she focuses on contemporary Middle Eastern and African art. She holds certifications in Advanced Arabic through the US Department of Education’s CASA fellowship in Jordan, Arts Leadership and Culture Management from the University of Connecticut, and a BA in Arabic and Persian from the University of St. Andrews. Her interest in the arts and languages was first sparked during high school as a NSLI-Y scholar in Morocco. Chloe-Kate has gained valuable experience working with various arts and education institutions, including an internship at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts and a fellowship at Al Akhawayn University. Having lived in Morocco on-and-off since 2014, she is particularly interested in contemporary North African art and themes of urban space, architecture, and identity. Chloe-Kate is currently pursuing a dissertation on Moroccan Modernist Mohamed Melehi and the Cultural Moussem of Asilah 1978.
Elika Blake
Elika Blake is an auction house professional with a specialty in the modern and contemporary arts of the SWANA region. Elika joined the Middle East & India division at Sotheby's in 2022, where she currently works as Cataloguer for Modern & Contemporary Middle East, supporting the biannual sales. In 2024, she is co-project managing Hafla, a series of exhibitions spanning the arts of Islam to the contemporary visual culture of the Arab Gulf. Elika is currently completing her MA in Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS University of London. She received her BA in History of Art from the University of Manchester, during which time her British-Persian heritage served as a great source of inspiration for her independent research. She was awarded for her dissertation which formed a chronological study of the relation between art and identity in twentieth-century Iran. Her postgraduate research interests include the art market, global curatorial practices and art institutions in the Arab Gulf states, and she is currently conducting her dissertation on a comparative study of biennials through the lens of Arab art. In 2024, Elika co-curated Hudood: Rethinking Boundaries, an exhibition of contemporary works from the Barjeel Art Foundation at the SOAS Gallery in London. Her essay, ‘Spatiality and Selfhood in the Modern Gulf City,’ features in the exhibition’s accompanying publication.
Antonis Kentonis
Antonis Kentonis is a transdisciplinary visual artist, art historian and collector, born and raised on the island of Cyprus. From a young age, Kentonis developed a deep fascination with history and culture, which fueled his passion for collecting objects that hold both material and narrative significance. This led him to establish the Kentoni Collection in collaboration with Gabriel Roberto Greer, making their research and the collected artefacts publicly accessible via a website. His research interests and inspiration for his creative work explore themes of historic trade, intersectionality, cultural erasure and cultural exchange. With focus on Byzantine, Islamic, and Japanese art. After his studies in Fine Art Painting from University of the Arts London, Camberwell, he is completing a master's in art history and Archeology at School of Oriental and African Studies.
Suparna Shankaranand Natesan
Suparna Shankaranand Natesan is pursuing a Master's in Curating Cultures at SOAS, broadening her expertise from the Indian subcontinent to the wider context of Asia. As a specialist in antiquity from the Indian sub-continent at Natesans Antiqarts Pvt Ltd, she has played a pivotal role in building Indian art collections and has consulted for private museums in India over the past seven years. Her entrepreneurial venture, Taksh by Natesans, is a testament to her appreciation for indigenous craftsmanship and her dedication to empowering artisans. Suparna’s research interests delve into the interplay of cross-cultural exchanges, exploring how artistic styles evolve and how an artist's identity is shaped by diverse influences. Her academic journey at SOAS has shaped her curating practice as one that merges ancient traditions and contemporary expressions across Asian cultures.
Nour Al Huda Zaynab Schröter
Nour al-Huda Zaynab Schröter is an MA student of Curating Cultures at SOAS where she is focusing on Islamic Art History. She mainly explores innovative ways of engaging with Islamic visual culture and reflecting on the decolonisation of academia and the museum. Currently, she is researching the visuality of Dalail Khayrat manuscripts from the Maghreb region. Her academic journey includes a Bachelor's in Liberal Arts and Sciences from the University College Freiburg, Germany, with studies in Malaysia, Türkiye, and Spain. Nour al-Huda’s practical experience includes working with the Education Department of documenta fifteen in Kassel and advising dialogue perspectives, an initiative for discussing religion and worldviews by the German federal foreign office. Her academic performance and social engagement are recognised with scholarships from Avicenna Studienwerk e.V. and the DAAD. Nour al-Huda’s curatorial practice is shaped by her intercultural background and deep interest in creative engagement with the pressing issues of our time.
Safa Kamran
Safa Kamran is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in History at SOAS University of London, where she previously completed her undergraduate degree in LLB Law. Throughout Kamran’s academic journey at SOAS University of London, her research interests have been focused on the study of Islamic and Classical Arab history, as well as Islamic Art and culture. Having lived in Riyadh for the majority of her life, she has curated a particular interest and passion for Arab culture and identity through lived experiences and an affiliation to the Arts of the SWANA region. Kamran’s current postgraduate research interests include the study of Classical Arabic and Islamic manuscripts, Islamic History and Architecture. For her dissertation, Kamran hopes to conduct a comparative study between the rise and fall of the Ottoman empire in juxtaposition with the decline of the Andalusian era during the Reconquista.
Shamsa Al Nahyan
Shamsa Alnahyan is a passionate curator and a second-year student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where she is pursuing a BA in Creative Arts and Cultural Industries. Prior to attending SOAS, Shamsa spent her formative years in Dubai surrounded by creative and cultural institutions that have shaped her ways of thinking and passion for the arts. While at SOAS University of London, Shamsa’s research interests have focused on curation, art history, culture, and exploring innovative ways to engage audiences and foster learning through the arts. At SOAS, Shamsa is a digital ambassador and has been involved in various projects that highlight her keen eye for detail and her ability to bring cultural narratives to life. Through her volunteer work at Art Dubai and London Palestine Film Festival, Shamsa has demonstrated her dedication to making cultural knowledge accessible and engaging for diverse audiences. Outside of her studies and curatorial projects, Shamsa enjoys exploring art galleries and museums, reading about cultural history, travelling to historical sites and constantly seeking new inspirations to fuel her professional and personal growth.
Clara Rose Virginia Ewert
Clara Ewert is completing her Postgraduate degree in the History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East with an Arabic Intensive this Autumn. Ewert attended St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and completed a BA degree in Photography. She has worked as a consultant with the Council for British Research in the Levant on two different archive digitisation projects in the past year. Prior to beginning her Masters, Ewert worked at the Imogen Cunningham Trust for four years as the Lead Archivist and managed a multi-year project to rehouse and catalogue the photographic collection of Rondal Partridge, Cunningham’s son. While at SOAS University of London, Ewert’s research interests have been focused on archival practices and how they can shape knowledge production in the MENASA region. Currently, she is completing her dissertation on how vernacular photographic archives might be used to reconstruct obscured histographies, specifically focusing on a photographic archive from Alexandria, Egypt that operated from 1930-1970.
Technical Details
- Publication Date:
- Thursday, July 11, 2024
- Language:
- English
- Format:
- Digital book
- ISBN:
- 978-614-8035-73-9