Pattern Recognition

Artists: Noor Abed, Abdallah Awwad, Asma Ghanem, Inas Halabi, Aya Kirresh, Majd Masri, Majdal Nateel, Ruba Salameh, Somar Sallam

Curator: Nat Muller

Pattern Recognition brings together newly commissioned work from the nine artists shortlisted for the 2016 edition of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA 2016). The Award is open to Palestinian artists under the age of 30 and is organised every two years by the A.M Qattan Foundation. The projects in the exhibition (curated by Nat Muller) explore how strategies of repetition open up avenues for critically rethinking issues of time, place, memory and authenticity. Straddling the grey zones between fact and fiction, original and copy, ruin and repair, the works re-imagine the mechanics of representation in the context of Palestine, where geographies, histories and identities are fragmented.

Many of the works focus on how cycles of production are disturbed by forces that make things come undone. This continuous tension between creation and its unraveling functions as a metaphor for the Palestinian condition and as a conduit for the discussion of the complexities of the diverse Palestinian realities these artists live and work in. It is from this reproduction and repetition of certain patterns that the artists reach out to the past and the future and trace a temporal lineage. Repetition becomes a way to traverse different eras, as well as an emancipatory tool for articulating an imaginary. This comes to the fore in the way the artists have edited their sound and video pieces, composed narrative structures, and used imagery and material.
 
The exhibition takes place in Beit Saa, a traditional house in the centre of Ramallah that was built in 1910 and restored two years ago.

The exhibition will travel to the Mosaic Rooms in London January 20, 2017–March 25, 2017.

Public program

Rhythm’n’Politics—The Mobility of Images: panel and screening at Q. I. Encounters
Sunday, October 9, 1–3:30pm
Location: Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah
Participants: Sven Augustijnen, S. Ayesha Hameed (via Skype), Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Marcel Schwierin, Nida Sinnokrot
Introduced and chaired by Nat Muller
 
Perpetual Recurrences—Brief Flashes Against a World: Screening programmes curated by Reem Shilleh and Övül O. Durmuşoğlu
Wednesday, October 12, 7–9pm
Location: Beit Saa, Ramallah
 
Homeland is…: performance by YAYA2016 artist Asma Ghanem
Thursday, October 13, 7–7:30pm
Location: Beit Saa, Ramallah
 
Exhibition guided tour with artist Majd Abdel Hamid (in Arabic)
Thursday, October 20, 5:30–7pm
Location: Beit Saa, Ramallah
 
Homeland is…: performance by YAYA2016 artist Asma Ghanem
Thursday, October 20, 7–7:30pm
Location: Beit Saa, Ramallah
 
Exhibition guided tour with curator and gallerist Samar Martha (in Arabic)
Thursday, October 27, 5:30–7pm
Location: Beit Saa, Ramallah
 
Homeland is…: performance by YAYA2016 artist Asma Ghanem
Thursday, October 27, 7–7:30pm
Location: Beit Saa, Ramallah
 

Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA)
The Young Artist of the Year Award is named after the late Palestinian artist, Hassan Hourani, who passed away in a tragic accident in August 2003. The Award was first organised in 2000 and has been repeated on a biennial basis as part of the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Culture and Arts Programme. It is open to Palestinian artists, regardless of their place of residence, between the ages of 22 and 30 who work in any area of the visual arts. 
 
The YAYA2016 jury members are: Sven Augustijnen, Tayseer Batniji, Katerina Gregos, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Ala Younis. 

For more information:
zina.zarour@qattanfoundation.org / T +970 2963280 205