Following the open call for this edition, launched in March 2024, 70 solicited and unsolicited applications were received from across the Arab world and beyond. Myriam Amroun (independent cultural producer, researcher, & curator, Algiers), Philip Rizk (filmmaker & writer, Berlin/Cairo), and Rana Anani (writer & curator, Ramallah) advised on the selection process of the groups, which are:
Informal Co-ops
Photographers and visual artists Duha Mohammed, Hashim Nasr, Metche Jaafar, and Ula Osman aim to contribute together to Cairo’s artistic community through a communal studio space that will serve as a workspace and cultural hub for Sudanese artists in Cairo. The space will facilitate collaboration, creativity, and dialogue within the community, and help each of the co-op members delve deeper into storytelling, surreal imagery, cultural narratives, and social issues, curate exhibitions, and engage with communities.
Visual artist Mais Safadi, filmmaker Salim Abu Jabal, video artist Shada Safadi, and visual artist Wael Tarabieh will work collectively on founding a film club in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, which would screen films on a weekly basis over the course of one year. The club would offer filmmaking workshops to develop skills in scriptwriting, editing, and cinematography in order to retain some control vis a vis the local authority, which has been presenting and promoting cultural programs that lack political content and a sense of belonging to a contiguous Arab culture.
Keyboardist Abdelkader Aboqassim, guitarist Ahmad Al-Haddad, percussionist Fares Anbar, singer and composer Mohammad Nasrallah, singer Rahaf Shamali, manager Rami Warasna, and drummer, oud player, and composer Said Fadel, will focus on providing musical instruments and sound devices in the Gaza Strip, employing music as a form of relief for children amidst the ongoing war.
Photographers Aseel Kabariti, Hani Alshaer, Latifeh Abdellatif, Mahmoud Ajjour, Mariana Nofal, Mohamed Abu Shaker, Mohamed Badarne, Mossab Shawer, Samar Hazbon, Wafaa Abu Hajjaj, and Yamam Alshaer will focus on Palestinian narratives coming out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. They will document stories of martyrs and work on their translation, factchecking, design, and production, while affirming the pioneering role that photographers play as they face incredible challenges and terrible conditions in Palestine.
Topical Assemblies
Painter, librarian, and mime Abdelkarim Bentato, visual artist and filmmaker Adrian Schindler, actor and storyteller Ali El Aziz, singer and social activist Fátima Bourhim Mesaoudi, visual artist and graphic designer Nassim Azarzar, and filmmaker and cultural mediator Sara Mediouni will explore together the role that theatre has played in the anticolonial struggle in northern Morocco during the Spanish Protectorate and its relation with Pan-Arabism, education, and the press. Through a polyphonic reading of the legacy, hopes, and disillusions of that historical moment, the group aims to address issues of class and gender that are often absent from the narrative of independence.
Musician and scholar Asher Gamedze, musician and composer Maurice Louca, producer and development manager May Mostafa, and creative producer Sarah El Miniawy form an international group that will work together on growing a knowledge pool through virtual listening sessions, reading groups, and regular meetings to question Western industry conventions, look to one’s own local informal economies, and draw inspiration from existing models that function as rotating credit unions or savings schemes. Operating online, the group will invite guests to learn about their practices, listen to their work, and discover the “scene” they come from, all through a rotative curation of events.
A Turkey-based group including performer and activist Azza, filmmaker and storyteller Mujja Alloba, fashion designer and visual artist Sofia, and writer and visual artist Yaman will focus on the artivism and empowerment of Arab queer refugees. Together, they will address the challenges that Arab queer refugees face in Turkey, including discrimination, societal hostility, and lack of representation. By combining art and activism, they aim to create a platform to express these individuals’ stories and advocate for their rights, and to explore new ways to support and amplify the voices of Arab queer refugees in Turkey.
Artist and curator Joud Al-Tamimi, writer and curator Lama El Khatib, writer and curator Loulita Toumazi, and artist and writer Miriam Gatt will focus together on the geographies of revolution, traversing histories of shared struggle across Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Cyprus through three research sessions to be conducted in Lebanon, Cyprus, and Jordan. The group will question the concept of revolution amidst an anti-colonial imperative and beyond state capture, explore their conception of the dead as a political category, and reflect on their engagement with landscapes as repositories of resistance.
This edition of Self Organizations is implemented as part of the project “Future Acts,” which is partially supported by the Federal Foreign Office, Germany.