My Work and Personal Highlights of 2019
Time for me to reflect on the work I did over the past year and also think about my personal highlights.
As an artist, there wasn’t much output this year. I did, however, take lots of photos this year, to share a monthly diary here on the blog. I started it because I had a lot of unused cameras and films, but I’ve been enjoying photography again and I aim to continue the Photo Diary in the new year.
A lot of my energy this year went into organising the film screenings I curate for Louvre Abu Dhabi (six different film series this year). I also recorded most of the episodes published this year for the Tea with Culture podcast and quite pleased I included several film related discussions this year.
I also travelled several times this year, mostly to attend film screenings.
I was hoping to do more writing this year. Something I need to work on in the new year.
Here’s a breakdown month by month:
January:
Curated a mini Youssef Chahine programme for Sharjah Film Platform.
Curated my 3rd film programme for Louvre Abu Dhabi, part of the Roads of Arabia exhibition.
February:
Attended my 4th Berlinale.
Saw Udo Kier twice on stage in Berlin, first at the Critic’s Week in Volksbühne Berlin and then at Berlinale during the Q&A for Holy Beasts.
March:
Curated my 4th film programme for Louvre Abu Dhabi, part of the Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age exhibition and was quite pleased I was able to include Still Life, a film by Harun Farocki.
Was included in a list of 20 Women At The Top Of The UAE Art Scene.
April:
Curated my 5th film programme for Louvre Abu Dhabi, part Photographs: An Early Album of the World exhibition. An extra highlight was including Bill Morrison’s Dawson City: Frozen time.
May:
Travelled to London.
Attended two Claire Denis talks at the BFI.
June:
Attended my third Il Cinema Ritrovato film festival in Bologna.
July:
Visited a new city and attended Karlovy Vary Film Festival for the first time. Main highlight was watching Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind in a cinema.
Visited another new city, Antwerp, to attend Summer Film School organised by CINEA.
Was part of Mail Art Berlin 2019 group exhibition at tête curated by Marcus Brownlow.
Curated my 6th film programme for Louvre Abu Dhabi, Cinem’Art 2019.
September:
Was invited to be on a panel talk at Tashkeel titled Art Critique in the UAE. Wrote about it here.
Travelled to Amsterdam to attend the Michael Mann and Andrei Tarkovsky film retrospectives.
October:
Attended my 5th BFI London Film Festival.
Watched Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman in a cinema, at Curzon Mayfair.
November:
Was invited to be on a panel talk at NYUAD titled Staging Public Memory with the artist Marysia Lewandowska to talk about her installation Cinema Island which includes an audio recorded by me.
My Photo Diary series is featured in issue 9 of Tribe magazine.
Curated my 8th film programme for Louvre Abu Dhabi, part of 10, 000 Years of Luxury exhibition.
December:
The Culturist’s 10th anniversary. Didn’t have a chance to throw a party. Maybe in January.
I ran a film discussion workshop where I had to select one of the films showing at Sharjah Film Platform to talk about. I selected Dunya’s Day by Raed Alsemari. Wrote a few words about it here.
In a group exhibition at Warehouse 421 in Abu Dhabi titled “How to maneuver: Shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics” curated by Kayfa ta’s Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis. I have a printed version of the blog, featuring a small selection of writings from the past 10 years. I've been thinking about a print version of The Culturist for a while, so this book is a work in progress.