Fruits weave together ancestral longing, anchoring us to home. ‘Double Blessings’ is an exhibition in Chicago that explore this concept through the work four artists who are connected to Palestine. Their art tells stories of consumption and lineage, with food as a common but diverse language.
I have interviewed Noel Maghathe, the curator of the show, for The New Arab.
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With the new art space Wonder Cabinet in Bethlehem, Palestinian architects Elias and Yousef Anastas,are recovering, treasuring and expanding the genius loci of the West Bank.
The kind of impact that the art space is hoping to have is twofold: encouraging the Palestinian art scene to grow beyond Ramallah, while also attracting creatives from around the world to Bethlehem.
I have interview them for Middle East Monitor.
Duty and care are the words that would best describe the approach of Dr Adila Laidi-Hanieh towards the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit.
She is stepping down as director of the museum at the end of this month, and she reflected on her years in charge, changing the institution from the inside out. I have interviewed her for Middle East Monitor
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Artist Marwa Benhalim told me there is an invisible line dividing Libya. I tried to guess what it was. But of the many divisions splitting Libya in two, I wouldn’t have ever thought about this one: couscous and rice.
She explains to me that on the western side of Libya, there are semolina fields, and all the main dishes are based on couscous.
On the eastern side, it’s all rice crops, and you can find rice-based recipes: “The couscous side of Libya was influenced by commerce with Morocco and Tunisia, the other side had rice comes from Asia through Egypt. Trade stopped in the middle because there is a very large desert,” she says. “Through the food people eat, you can really understand the history of a country.”
I have interviewed the artist for The New Arab.
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Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
