Berbers, or Amazigh, are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa, specifically Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and to a lesser extent Mauritania, northern Mali, and northern Niger. The Amazigh define themselves as the original inhabitants of North Africa, however, over the centuries they have shared their lands with other groups, such as the Carthaginians,…
Udon is a thick noodle made from wheat flour, widely used in Japanese cuisine. The precise origin of udon remains somewhat of a mystery though there are several theories, the oldest of which suggests that the robust noodle came from China in the 700s. It first became popular with the Japanese population during the Edo…
Working together for a decade, Bárbara Wagner, born in Brasília, Brazil, and Benjamin de Burca, hailing from Munich, Germany, produce films and video installations that feature protagonists engaged in cultural production. The duo typically collaborates with non-actors to make their films, from writing scripts to staging performances on camera. The resulting works are marked by…
Born in Alexandria, Egypt, and currently based in Berlin, Germany, visual artist Mahmoud Khaled’s process-oriented and multidisciplinary practice could be regarded as formal and philosophical ruminations on art as political activism — a space for critical reflection. Moving between the scale of the minute and a more immersive totality, his work takes on failure, austere…
Compared to the wealth of literature dealing with modern art in the West, the scholarly and literary contributions to modern Arab art are scarce. Despite the lack of historical perspectives and accounts, the field is developing thanks to a number of active researchers and scholars and an increasing institutional support from regional and international organisations….
For the first time, four of India’s leading galleries – Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai; Experimenter, Kolkata; Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai; and Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi – have come together for a collaborative exhibition in London entitled Conversations on Tomorrow, hosted by Sadie Coles HQ. The ambitious collaboration, open now and running until 18 June 2022…
The oldest surviving paper-cut work is a symmetrical circle from the 6th century found in Xinjiang, China. Ka-ming Wu, Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, explains that in the 20th century, paper-cuts have been variously regarded as a domestic craft, a site of rural purity, a marker of Chinese civilisation, and more recently,…
In an age of globalisation, the contemporary art practices of Myanmar have developed largely in isolation, cautiously overcoming strict censorship laws to birth distinctive and nuanced bodies of work laden with self-reflection. Having existed in isolation from 1962 to 2011, the country is steeped in Buddhist belief, which unsurprisingly permeates its way into the creative…