Ramata-Toulaye Sy, "Banel e Adama", 2023. Film Still.
Courtesy LA CHAUVE-SOURIS - TAKE SHELTER
The wonderful Qatar Museums announces its exhibition project for a major exhibition on the occasion of the Venice Biennale,60. International Art Exhibition, in which the visions of dozens of directors and video artists from the Middle East, Africa and South-East Asia are represented on the most prestigious stage in the art world. The exhibition entitled Your ghosts are mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices, scheduled at ACP–Palazzo Franchetti from 19 April to 24 November, presents a journey through moving images through contemporary experiences of common life and memory, migration and exile.
Your ghosts are mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices is produced by Qatar Museums, co-organized by Doha Film Institute and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum (currently under construction) in collaboration with ACP Art Capital Partners . The exhibition is curated by Matthieu Orléan in collaboration with Majid Al-Remaihi and Virgile Alexandre, concept design by architects and designers Cookies (Federico Martelli and Clément Périssé). The following are part of the steering committee: Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, Zeina Arida and Catherine Grenier.Project management: Minas Stratigos. Exhibition Manager: Khalifa Al Thani. The exhibition intends to present an experiential journey through ten sections, each dedicated to a theme such as, for example, deserts (cradle of civilization and place of rebirth), ruins (remains of ancient cultures), women's voices, borders (delimitations between places accessible and inaccessible places) and exile, through films selected, supported, co-financed or initiated by the Doha Film Institute and with video works from the collections of the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum.
These films and videos range across different genres: fiction, documentaries, animated products and memoirs, often blending imagery with real events, modernity with tradition, spirituality with postcolonial sensitivity. Excerpts from over 40 works by as many directors from Algeria (Hassen Ferhani, Tariq Teguia), Egypt (Morad Mostafa, Sameh Alaa), Ethiopia (Jessica Beshir), Iran (Shirin Neshat, Shoja Azari, Ali Asgari), Lebanon ( Khalil Joreige & Joana Hadjithomas, Ali Cherri), Lesotho (Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese), Morocco (Faouzi Bensaïdi, Randa Maroufi, Asmae El Moudir), State of Palestine (Elia Suleiman, Raed Andoni, Larissa Sansour, Abdallah Al-Khatib), Qatar (Hamida Issa, Amal Al-Muftah, Majid Al Remaihi, A.J. Al-Thani, Rawda Al Thani), Sudan (Suzannah Mirghani), Mauritania (Abderrhamane Sissako), Syria (Yasser Kassab, Mohamad Malas, Fares Fayyad), Senegal (Ramata -Toulaye Sy), Yemen (Shaima Al Tamimi) and over a dozen other countries, as well as video works by artists Wael Shawky, Lida Abdul, Hassan Khan and Sofia Al Maria. Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, President of Qatar Museums and the Doha Film Institute, said, “inaugurating Your ghosts are mine during the Art Biennale, continuing into the Venice Film Festival period , will allow a large number of foreign visitors to open their eyes to the ideas, emotions and above all to the artistic perspectives of contemporary directors from the Arab world and neighboring areas.
In presenting this exhibition, Qatar Museums pursues its mission to foster dialogue across borders through cultural exchange, while the Doha Film Institute fulfills its mandate to nurture and promote emerging talent from our region.” Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, Chief Executive Officer of the Doha Film Institute (DFI), added: “For some 15 years, the Institute has worked to correct misinterpretations of Arab culture, stories and aesthetics by cultivating important new voices in the cinema. We are proud to have supported more than 800 projects in 74 different countries, underlining Qatar's commitment to developing a new generation of storytellers, bringing balance to the global landscape of film production. The DFI's creative ecosystem has been made available to promote talent from the Arab world and beyond, enabling them to connect with new audiences, and we hope visitors will discover these unique perspectives, stitched together by a team of experts including Qatari directors Majid Al Remaihi and Khalifa Al-Thani” “As co-organizers of Your ghosts are mine, we are proud to be able to collaborate on this innovative exhibition” says Zeina Arida, director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, and Catherine Grenier, concept director of the future Art Mill Museum, adds “The work of our two museums is very much in tune, each in their own way, with the ambitious attempt of Your ghosts are mine to rethink the categories we use to understand the 21st century, whether the boundaries to be crossed are geopolitical ones, whether they are those between fiction and documentary or the antiquated distinction between film and video. We believe that museums have a particular role to play in fully integrating cinema into the history of art."“Cinema is not just the mirror of political changes: it participates in them, anticipates them, accompanies them, supports them, transforms them into a bold aesthetic approach” declares Matthieu Orléan. “These films do not belong to the cultural mass media industry. They follow their own path, without ever forgetting that they are and will be perceived as pieces of history."“The exhibition project created by the Cookies studio offers visitors a diversified and engaging experience by interacting with each of the proposed curatorial themes” argue Federico Martelli and Clément Périssé. “For each room of the exhibition, Cookies has designed original structures that respond to the technical needs of the cinematographic presentation while respecting the exhibition concept. This approach ensures that the exhibition dialogues with the architecture of the building and simultaneously facilitates immersive moments in which spectators can fully experience the experiential journey given by the careful selection of films chosen from the Doha Film Institute catalogue."
Scheduled until November 24, the exhibition is one of the many Qatar Museums initiatives on the occasion of the Venice Biennale. Mathaf lends numerous works by leading contemporary Arab artists for the exhibition Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Andriano Pedrosa, the main exhibition of the 60th International Art Exhibition. Qatar Museums is also a supporter of the Nigerian Pavilion and a founding sponsor of the Art for Tomorrow conference, scheduled in Venice from 5 to 7 June 2024. Your ghosts are mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices also remains open on the occasion of the 81st International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art which will start on August 28th.