My latest piece about Nabil Anani’s new show, currently at Zawyeh Gallery, just came out for The New Arab.
Nabil is one of the founders of the contemporary Palestinian art movement. His works highlight Palestine’s folkloric culture and seek to foster national pride beyond Israel’s 75-year occupation.
Read More![The third edition of Ramallah Art Fair at Zawyeh Gallery in Ramallah [Instagram/ramallah_artfair]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Untitled-1.png?resize=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The first article published this year is about the third edition of an atypical but important art fair that takes place in Ramallah, Palestine.
It’s the second year that I follow tis partly physical partly virtual art fair, and this time I spoke with the fair’s director for Middle East Monitor.
![Bashar Alhroub [Zawyeh gallery]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/portrait-with-sabeel-qaytobay-2-scaled-e1669216667126.jpg?resize=1200%2C799&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
The new Dubai show of Ramallah-based artist Bashar Alhroub looks at his native city Jerusalem as a place with multiple identities. “When you are in Jerusalem,” Alhroub told me, “you never feel you are in one single place. You never feel that the city is belonging to anyone, although everyone claims it as theirs.”
The artist’s new show opened on 14 November at Zawyeh Gallery in Dubai, and last until 5 January. Called “Tracing Boundaries”, the artist focuses on Jerusalem as a religious symbol, while also looking at it as a subject of pop culture. He traces the boundaries between holiness and material culture and invites the visitor to observe a fine line between spirituality and commercial clutter.
I have interviewed the artist for Middle East Monitor
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Starting Palestine’s first ever art fair during a global pandemic may seem a daunting proposition, but for Ziad Anani and Yusef Hussein, of the Zawyeh Art Gallery, it was a much needed way to bring Palestinians together in testing times.
I reported and wrote the story for Middle East Eye.
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“For me, there is always a visceral element to how I create,” tells me Suha Araj from her home in Brooklyn. “That’s why I’m always drawn to the stories of the Diaspora, because that’s where I have the most emotion. I’m interested in how people survive, and the clashes of living between two cultures.”
My interview with Palestinian-American director Suha Araj has just been published on Middle East Monitor. It was a wonderful conversation that opened up to me new learning not only about Arab cinema, but also about how one becomes a director.
Here is the link to the interview
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I might be repeating myself, but even a short piece of writing – meant to announce the publication of a new piece – is an opportunity to speak about the true wonder of this job. The knowledge, hope and excitement that it brings. Every conversation is a gift, every piece published a way to let all this interestingness out, to feel part of those bringing light and understanding to our human society.
Anyway, this interview with Palestinian Museum director Dr Adila Laïdi Hanieh, adds up to my research on art and culture in Palestine, I have been started researching since I wrote my first few articles for the excellent web magazine Middle East Monitor. The conversation with such an elegant personality, whose direction is bringing harmony and rationalisation to the Palestinian Museum, was truly inspiring.
Here is the link to the interview
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Middle East Monitor has just published my article about Syrian artist Randa Maddah, whose work has recently been presented in the exhibition “A Hair Tie” at Gallery One in Ramallah, Palestine.
Here’s the link to the article
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My piece “New documentary puts Palestinian hip-hop in the spotlight” has just been published on the webmagazine Middle East Monitor. In this article I interview Giulia Giorgi, director of the documentary “Break the Siege” (Baburka Productions).
This uplifting 20-minute film gives an insight into the Palestinian hip-hop scene. The storyline follows preparations for the “Hip-Hop Smash the Wall” event which took place over the course of one week in Ramallah and Jerusalem in 2014 and brought together hip-hop artists from Palestine and Italy. In the piece I also spoke with Roman graffiti artist Gojo, who tells about his impressions of the hip-hop scene in Ramallah.
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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
