The Future of a Promise: Contemporary Art from the Arab World

Ibraaz Publishing, 2011 | CO-EDITOR [with Lina Lazaar]

The Future of a Promise is the catalogue for the largest pan-Arab exhibition of contemporary art at the 54th Venice Biennale, published by Ibraaz. From Tunisia all the way to Saudi Arabia, this landmark exhibition curated by Lina Lazaar brought together more than 25 recent works and commissions by some of the foremost artists from the Arab world, including, Ziad Antar (Lebanon), Fayçal Baghriche (Algeria), Yto Barrada (France), Taysir Batniji (Palestine), Ayman Yossri Daydban (Palestine), Mounir Fatmi (Morocco), Mona Hatoum (Lebanon) as well as three Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winners, Jananne Al-Ani (Iraq), Kader Attia (France), and Nadia Kaabi-Linke (Tunisia).

The Future of a Promise examines how a promise opens up a horizon of future possibilities, be they aesthetic, political, historical, social or critical. With the events currently unfolding in the Middle East, the question of the future and the promise inherent within culture has assumed an even more acute degree of pertinence. The exhibition enquires into the promise of visual culture in an age that has become increasingly disaffected with politics as a means of social engagement. The artists included in The Future of a Promise seek to engage with a singular issue in the Middle East today: who gets to represent the present-day realities and the horizons to which they aspire?

The catalogue is edited by Ibraaz's Editor Dr. Anthony Downey and Associate Editor Lina Lazaar and includes essays by the editors, Samir Kassir and Rachida Triki, and an interview with Muslim scholar Mohamed Talbi.

Chapter authored: Beyond the Former Middle East: Aesthetics, Civil Society, and the Politics of Representation.To purchase a copy of The Future of a Promise please follow this link.