From Uncovering Archives to Casting the Lens on Climate Crisis: 2024 Visual Arts Grantees Announced
21 / 8 / 2024
Fifteen visual arts projects will receive support through our Visual Arts program this year. Encompassing a variety of themes ranging from archives and collective memory to climate crisis and its impact, these projects employ various mediums and outputs such as multimedia installations, visual symphonies, exhibitions, art books, video art, etc.
The 2024 Visual Arts jury committee — composed of Egyptian artist, curator and publisher Maha Maamoun, Tunisian multimedia conceptual artist Nadia Kaabe-Linke and Algerian cultural practitioner Khaled Bouzidi — convened in July to deliberate over the applications and make a final selection. At the close of their deliberations, the jurors issued the following statement:
“Serving on AFAC's Visual Arts jury this year has been a particularly inspiring, challenging and thought provoking process due to the exceptionally high quality and quantity of applications. We reviewed practices spanning different generations, career stages and mediums, coming from a wide range of artists and practitioners in the region and its diasporas. The applications dwelled on many of the region's deep and complex cultural, political and economic fault lines and how they resonate in the subtlest artistic methods, as strongly as in the direct.
We noted a trend emphasizing the urgency of personal and critical research and publishing that focussed on significant moments in our cultural histories, and how their strong yet sublimated power speaks to our present. Strong artistic statements that responded to concerns ringing throughout our expanded cultural landscapes, or otherwise following singular and intimate pursuits, left equally strong impressions on us, and their relentless persistence shaped our selection process.
Given our more limited resources this year, we aimed to support and prioritize projects, or stages of projects, that we believed could not be timely realized without this year's AFAC Visual Arts grant.
Congratulations to all the grant recipients, and we sincerely salute many of the strong projects that could not be selected this year and wish them the best of luck in future editions.”
The selected projects
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Autonomics, Kinda Hassan, Lebanon | Installation/Sound Art
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Here, The Doors Don't Know Me, Mohamed Mahdy, Egypt | Art Book
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Beyond the Letters, Basma Hamdy, Egypt | Exhibition/Art Book
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Karimeh Abboud (1893-1940). Early Woman Photographer. Images of Palestine, Barzakh Publishing House, Algeria | Exhibition/Art Book
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The Clinamen: Anamnesis of an Inexistent, Mostafa Mahmoud Abdelaziz ( Elbaroody), Egypt | Video Art
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Gabès, a Symphony, Mohamed Ismail Louati, Tunisia | Installation/Video Art
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River Papers, Mina Image Centre, Lebanon | Exhibition/Installation/Sound Art/Video Art
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The Legacy of Light, Sofiane Bakouri, Algeria | Exhibition
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Imperfect Archives, Louisa Babari, Algeria | Exhibition/Installation
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ASNAM, Georges Salameh, Lebanon | Art Book/Lecture Performance
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Who is Yeza?, Nada Dagdoug, Tunisia | Exhibition/Installation/Video Art
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The Promise of the Nineties, Ghassan Halwani, Lebanon | Art Book
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The Algerian Novel, Katia Kameli, Algeria | Installation/Residency/Video Art
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The Master: Mohielddin Ellabbad (1940-2010), Ahmed Ahmed Mohieeldin Ellabbad, Egypt | Art Book
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The Public Writer, Bouchra Khalili, Morocco | Installation/Video Art