Carving out time to work on creative projects doesn’t require an artist’s residency. A staycation is cheaper, simpler and focuses attention where you need it. My new piece “Take a creative staycation” looks at this fascinating trend and has just been published Australian/Uk webmagazine ArtsHub.
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Lovers, friends and family have always been the favourite source of inspiration for artists since the beginning of times. Of course, these involuntary muses are not always happy of being turned into characters of a story, or having their portrait on a gallery wall. This especially if the art deals with intimate, personal and potentially embarrassing themes.
Back in the day the artist could hope the subject matter was unaware of being included in the work. Today though it’s virtually impossible. An image or a review can be infinitely shared on social media. At the same time gallery access is not just for the elites anymore.
I this piece, which has just been published on ArtsHub, I discuss the ethics of including other people’s life in art with artist Geraldine Kang and writer Michele Lee.
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I’m a big fan of reading how writers organize their research and how they put their books together. I figured it would be interesting to detail the way I’m working at my new book on young artists in Singapore. In this post I’ll walk you through the first few stages from the preliminary research to the first draft.
First phase: preliminary research. I read articles about Singapore art scene and books on Singapore urbanism, political and economical situation. I interviewed Lee Wen when he was in Rome, I met up with Italian artists who went to Singapore on a residency, and talked to a couple of Singaporean curators visiting Italy, included Paul Khoo. I stayed two weeks in Paris for the Singapour en France event, composed by the Paris Art Fair and the exhibition “Secret Archipelago”. In both case I interviewed artists, curators and gallery owners. Back home, I talked with via skype to other Singaporean artists, mainly for magazine articles. Finally, I went to Milan to visit the exhibition “Bright S’pore” at Primo Marella gallery and saw some works in person.
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Twenty-fifteen has been an intense year full of cheerfulness, discovery and adventure – I feel I learned so much! For starters I reconquered Rome, which I re-elected as my base (I keep on saying “for the time being”, but truth is, I’m in love with this city). Since I installed in my bedroom in San Lorenzo – the left-leaning, working-class neighborhood of Rome – I felt a new chapter of my life had started.
When I chose to become a freelance journalist, the possibility of working from everywhere was extremely luring. And I experimented a little with it, especially that couple of years that I was based first in Melbourne, Australia, and then going back and forth between Rome and Sorrento every two weeks. I quickly found out that what I pictured as total freedom, actually required an unusual amount of discipline.
In this piece for ArtsHub I interviewed absolute experts on location independency: writers Shannon O’Donnel of A Little Adrift, Jeannie Mark of Nomadic Chick and artist Veronica Kent. In this sense writing for ArtsHub is fantastic because it gives me the chance to go around and ask questions on matters that I feel pressing. And being a full-time digital nomad is still something I give a lot of thought to.
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Hello from Singapore! Before leaving for the Lion City (I’m conducting interviews for my upcoming reportage), I was spurred by a comment by artist Grace Siregar to look at gender gap in the arts in South East Asia. I talked about it with a few people and wrote a piece on the subject for ArtsHub.
Here’s the link to the article
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When we turn our thoughts to contemporary art from Egypt, the first images that come to mind are political graffiti and militant posters. Our idea of Egyptian art is attached strongly to concepts such as uprising, revolution and the Arab Spring. In this piece for the webmagazine Middle East Monitor I look at how the upcoming Something Else Off Biennale Cairo is changing those labels and refreshing the Cairo art scene.
Here’s the link to the article
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Australian/Uk webmagazine ArtsHub has published my piece “Four ways arts workers can win in the new economy”. I have been interested in the sharing economy and the opportunities it provides to artists and art workers from a long time. By researching and writing this piece I got excited about the future – we tend to perceive our time as less revolutionary compared to the past decades, but actually there is so much going on, thanks to new technologies and the internet. In the piece I talk about three platforms that are contributing to reinventing the economy.
Here’s the link to the article
Here’s a pdf version of the piece
I was invited to write a short curatorial text on the work of the Palermitan photographer Ornella Mazzola for the exhibition “PALERMO DENTRO ” held at Palm Beach Hotel, Cinisi, Sicily. Ornella is a talented friend and colleague and I highly recommend to check out her website – or even better visit the exhibition, if you happen to spend these last warm weeks in Sicily. The show will be open to the public from the 19th of September to the 24th of October. Below my text in English and Italian.
ORNELLA MAZZOLA
“Palermo Dentro”
Are the people making the places, ore the places making the people? In the series Palermo Inside by Ornella Mazzola, we go back to the chicken and egg paradox. There is no right of way, because people and places become inextricably linked. For the inhabitants of the most working class neighbourhoods in the city’s historic center – Kalsa, Albergheria, Borgo vecchio, Vucciria, Ballarò and La Marina – boldness fights with resignation. The People is actually made up of a myriad of stories that intersect, while maintaining their singularity. You see that in a gesture of woman, maybe aggressive, perhaps reluctant. In solitary play of children in silent spaces. In the foosball on a sultry summer afternoon. Ornella is able to crystallize a series of habits that constitute the soul of the city as much as their own buildings. Here human beings shows themselves in their theatricality. The city is a stage from which mysterious figures emerge, like a premonition. In the end, what everything comes down to is that you can take the people out of Palermo, but you can’t take Palermo out of the people.
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UK/Australian webmagazine ArtsHub has just published my new piece: “The slow truth behind overnight success”. For artists, the fairy tale of a big break is usually only half the story. Years of preparation is often behind an ‘overnight success’.
Here is my take on Hermann Nitsch’s highly controversial exhibition “Das Orgien Mysterien Theater” at the Cantieri culturali alla Zisa, Palermo, Sicily. A petition by animal rights activists tried to boycott the show by the Wiener Aktionismus and Body Art pioneer. I look into the reasons behind the petition, and question the idea of sanitized art and censorship. The piece has been published on the Sunday edition of The Times of Malta with the title “On disturbing the comfortable”.
Here’s the link to the article
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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
Published! Graphic Journalism and Migration on Global Comment
My piece “How A New Generation of Graphic Novels Are Portraying Migration” has just been published on the webmagazine Global Comment. For this piece I spoke with graphic journalist Gianluca Costantini, comic book artist and illustrator Matt Huynh and SBS producer Kylie Boltin.
Here’s the link to the article
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