Ala Younis is a research-based artist and
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
, based in Amman. Younis initiates journeys in archives and narratives, and reinterprets collective experiences that have collapsed into personal ones. Through research, she builds collections of objects, images, information, narratives, and notes on why/how people tell their stories. Her practice is based on found material, and on creating materials when they cannot be found or when they do not exist.
Early life and education
Born in
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
in 1974, Younis moved to
Amman in 1984. She graduated as an architect from the
University of Jordan
The University of Jordan ( ar, الجامعة الأردنية), often abbreviated UJ, is a public university located in Amman, Jordan. Founded in 1962 by royal decree, it is the largest and oldest institution of higher education in Jordan. ...
in 1997. She holds a Masters in Research in Visual Cultures from
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...
.
Career
Younis has produced art installations, video works, publications, temporary collectives, publishing projects, and curated exhibitions. Her curatorial projects include Kuwait's first national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013, the nomadic collection of Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence, and "An Index of Tensional and Unintentional Love of Land" at
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
in the context of "Here and Elsewhere" exhibition organized in 2014. Her work was shown at the Institute du Monde Arabe (2013), 9th Gwangju Biennial (2012), Museum of Modern Arab Art in Doha (2012), New Museum Triennial (2012), 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), Home Works '5 Beirut (2010), The Jerusalem Show (2009), PhotoCairo 4 (2008) and other places.
Her publication projects include 'Needles to Rockets' (2009), 'Tin Soldiers' (2012), and the non-profit publishing initiative Kayfa-ta, a series of cost-effective Arabic monographs on how to, co-founded with artist
Maha Maamoun. She is a recipient of the Bellagio Creative Arts Fellowship, as well as art prizes from Cairo's 17th Youth Salon (2005) and Jordanian Artists Association (2005). Younis co-directed
Global Art Forum 8 (2014), and has spoken in conferences and symposiums including Venice Agendas (2013),
Berlinale
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
's Forum Expanded (2013–2015), Sweet Sixities Beirut (2013), Global Art Forum 7 in Doha (2013), and ThinkFilm in Berlin (2012). Younis worked as the artistic director (2009–10), acting director (2008–09) and assistant director (2006–08) of Darat al Funun – The Khalid Shoman Foundation in Amman. She also curated film programs for the three editions of Arab Shorts – Independent Arab Film Festival (2009–2011) organized by Goethe Institut Cairo, and is on the advisory board of Berlinale's Forum Expanded.
Curatorial projects
In 2013, for Kuwait's first national pavilion at the 55th
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
, Ala Younis curated "National Works". The show disassembled symbols of grandeur in paused/post glorious times, in an attempt to re-interpret Kuwait's modernization project, while the exhibition's publication explored the emotional and theoretical contexts of works at a time when national identity was not questioned, and when modernist projects, cultural or contractual, were national works. ""The sleeper hit of the summer among the pavilions from this part of the world is Kuwait's pavilion, nimbly curated by Ala Younis. It features a curious installation delving into the heart-stopping history of
Sami Mohammad's statues, alongside a ruminative, achingly lonely series of photographs mounted on light boxes by the artist
Tarek al-Ghoussein. Younis' sensitive excavation of Mohammad's work allows for some searching self criticality on nationalism and modernity from within the pavilion itself. Ghoussein's "K-Files" represent a seamless and gorgeous continuation of his staged self-portraiture series, working in a mode he calls performance photography."
This show followed her curated "Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence (MoMRtA)" which premiered at Museum of Modern Art in Kuwait and Museum of Modern in 2012. Initiated and produced by MinRASY Projects, the museum is a nomadic collection of commissioned objects that respond to the absence of Palestinians and their history from Kuwait, each object of which is an impossibility or exaggeration. The show premiered at Kuwait's Museum of Modern Art in May 2012.
Her other curatorial projects include:
* "An Index of Tensional and Unintentional Love of Land" exhibition set within "Here and Elsewhere" exhibition at
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sch ...
in New York, 2014
* "This land first speaks to you in signs", exhibition of archival materials and some films from the collection of Cimatheque, Cairo and Berlin, 2015
* "The closest I've ever come to a scientific experiment", at the project space of
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2014
* "Covering One's Back", a photography exhibition co-curated with
Maha Maamoun, Gezira Art Center, Cairo, 2013
* "The Crowd Behind Us", presented at three venues within the Image Festival in Amman, 2012
* "Momentarily Learning from Mega-Events" at Makan art space, Amman, 2011
* "Outre mesure et programmes radio" at La Galeriem Noisy-Le-Sec, Paris, 2011
* "Out of Place", co-curated with
Kasia Redzisz for
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
and Darat al Funun's collaboration project, presented at both institutions in 2011.
Art projects
Her projects begin with found objects and images that might initially seem odd or intriguing, for instance
Nefertiti
Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in which ...
(2008) is an installation of video and defunct sewing machines (Nefertiti) that were produced and sold in Egypt after the 1952 revolution, and were among the country's plan to nationalize industrial production and to create productive symbols of Egyptian sovereignty. The manufacture of Nefertiti was discontinued in the 1980s, due to various flaws in the design.
"For Younis, its manufacture was a 'feminist project' that, although it confined women to the domestic space, also, 'aimed at empowering Egyptian housewives, since it gave them a chance to earn money while their husbands were away fighting'. Yet once the old, elegant, curvaceous Nefertiti was retired, the market was flooded with aesthetically inferior Western machines. The Nefertiti became a focus for nostalgia, and this video explores people's attachment to their old sewing machines."
Her found objects become part of a web of stories in which the personal is inextricable from the collective, like in the publication version of "Tin Soldiers" (2010–2) which is made of text and image portraits of contemporary (in)formal Middle Eastern soldiers, and the virtual and alternative spaces they practice their version of militarism in. "Tin Soldiers" is also an installation of 12,265 metal figurines depicting nine armies of the Middle East. The project was produced and shown at HomeWorks 5 in Beirut (2010) and at the Istanbul Biennial (2011). The publication version was also installed as an exhibition at the New Museum Triennial and at the Gwangju Biennial, both took place in 2012.
"UAR" (2014) is a series, of drawings and found objects, that studies the stories and mechanisms that produced
Gamal Abdel Nasser's historical figure in the time of the
United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic (UAR; ar, الجمهورية العربية المتحدة, al-Jumhūrīyah al-'Arabīyah al-Muttaḥidah) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 until 1971. It was initially a political union between Eg ...
(1958–1971). The project starts from a photograph of Nasser looking onto an enthusiastic and proud Arab crowd during the signing of a sovereign union agreement between Egypt and Syria in 1958.
Oraib Toukan and Ala Younis collaborate on exploring film footage, discarded by the former Soviet Friendship Society in Amman. They both "developed a peculiar archeology of research that looks at early Palestinian film production, technocratic Soviet friendships, cine clubs, and Russian language films in Amman." Their 3-minute film from this research, titled "From the impossibility of one page being like the other", was broadcast on Channel 4 (UK) at New York Film Festival in 2014.
Her project "Plan for Greater Baghdad" was selected for "All the World's Futures" curated by
Okwui Enwezor
Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the ''ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...
for the 56th International Art Exhibition –
La Biennale di Venezia
The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
, and show in Arsenale in 2015. Produced in two and three-dimensional prints, "Plan for Greater Baghdad" traces the stories and links around
Saddam Hussein Gymnasium in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
that was designed by
Le Corbusier. Activated by a set of 35mm slides taken by architect
Rifat Chadirji
Rifat Chadirji ( ar, رفعت الجادرجي ''Rifa'a al-Khādarjī'', also Romanized ''Rifa'at Al Chaderchi''; 6 December 1926 – 10 April 2020) was an Iraqi Turkmen architect. He was often referred to as the father of modern Iraqi architect ...
in 1982, the project reproduces documents that relate to monuments, architects, governments, and the shifts and tensions between ideals and ideologies. The project borrows its title from
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
's proposal for a cultural center and an Opera House in Baghdad. His "
Plan for Greater Baghdad
The Plan for Greater Baghdad was a project done by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright for a cultural center, opera house, and university on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq, in 1957–58. The most thoroughly developed aspects of the plan were the ...
" was a result of his visit to Baghdad in 1957, yet it was never built.
Younis received the 2nd prize at the 17th Youth Salon, Painting for Non Egyptians, in Cairo (2005); and the 3rd Prize at the Annual Exhibition of Jordanian Artists Association in Amman (2005). In 2012 she was selected by Christine Tohme as one of ArtReview's 'Future Greats 2012'.
Selected exhibitions
2015:
-All the World's Futures, 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Okwui Enwezor, Venice
2014:
– New York Film Festival, New York
– Here and Elsewhere, exhibition curated by Massimiliano Gioni and team, New Museum, New York. Participation took the form of a curated exhibition at the 5th floor titled "An Index of Tensional and Unintentional Love of Land"
– Multitude, Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo
– Tea with Nefertiti, Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst,
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
– UAR, solo exhibition at Gypsum Gallery, Cairo
– Meeting Points 7, Ten thousand wiles and a hundred thousand tricks,
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
, Hong Kong,
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, Antwerp and Zaghreb
2013:
– Tea with Nefertiti, IVAM Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
– 59th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Lichtburg Filmpalast, Oberhausen
2012:
– ROUNDTABLE, 9th Gwangju Biennial, curated by
Nancy Adajania
Nancy Adajania (born 1971) is am Indian cultural theorist, art critic and independent curator.
Early life and education
Nancy Adajania was born in 1971 in Mumbai, India. She was educated at the Princess Alexandra School, Elphinstone College, wh ...
– The Ungovernables, exhibition curated by Eunjie Joo, New Museum Triennial, New York
– A Gathering, curated by Maria-Thalia Carras and Olga Hatzidaki, Athens
– London Palestine Film Festival, London
2011:
– Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), curated by
Adriano Pedrosa
Adriano Pedrosa is a Brazilian curator. He is the artistic director of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and the 2024 Venice Biennale. Among Pedrosa's most well-known curated shows is ''Histórias'', a series of shows at MASP each examining ...
and Jens Hoffman, Istanbul
2010:
– Home Works 5’, forum and exhibition curated by Christine Tohme, Beirut Art Center, Beirut
– Solo exhibition at
Delfina Foundation, London
2009:
Solo exhibition at Darat al Funun, Amman
2008:
– PhotoCairo 4: The Long Shortcut, curated by Aleya Hamza and Edit Molnar, Hungarian Cultural Center, Cairo
– The Third International Biennale for the Artist's Book 2008, Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Publications
Ala Younis published "Needles to Rockets"
with Motaz Attalla in 2009. The publication collects personal responses to questions that emerge around the place of consumer products in the lives of people and in society at large in Egypt. The people's answers illustrate how objects become iconic and acquire personas, and they tell some of the myths that surround them. The publication is named after Gamal Abdel Nasser's famous slogan of industrial promise.
References
External links
Official websiteKayfa ta Publishing InitiativeMuseum of Manufactured Response to Absence (MoMRtA)Out of Place at Tate ModernPlan for Greater Baghdad feature on Nafas
{{DEFAULTSORT:Younis, Ala
Living people
Kuwaiti artists
Jordanian women artists
Jordanian women painters
1974 births
People from Amman
University of Jordan alumni