Keys to the exhibition 1. “Waste Lands” is an experimental exhibition produced by Es Baluard along the lines of displays on today’s reality and it immediate surroundings, based on the Mediterranean that surrounds the Balearic Islands and the countries that border on it – with their unresolved contradictions and crises and political and social transformations – positioned at the intersection of the problems of a world in conflict with a critical stance oriented towards debate. 2. Whereas last year Es Baluard produced an exhibition -“La Mer au Milieu des Terres // Mare Medi Terraneum”, curated by Cecile Bourne-, which reflected on the concept of Mediterranean, this year it is the turn of “Waste Lands”, under the curatorship of Piedad Solans. 3. The exhibition brings together the work of ten artists, all of them women, Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine. 4. Using contemporary creation, the museum seeks to analyse and re-think latent and unresolved crises. In the case of “Waste Lands”, the exhibition mechanism is used to present a narrative threaded together by Piedad Solans on these nearby, latent conflicts, scars and wounds that we must learn to understand and decode. Es Baluard Press Office: Jesús Torné ([email protected]). Tel. + 34 971 908 201 Technical Specifications TITLE: «Waste Lands». ARTISTS: Lida Abdul, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Amina Benbouchta, Gohar Dashti, Rena Effendi, Yara El-Sherbini, Mariam Ghani, Kinda Hassan, Larissa Sansour. CONTENT: 22 works of art made by ten artists among sculptures, installations, videos, photographs, books and graphic novel. The exhibition is complemented with a documentation of artists linked to its thematic. CURATOR: Piedad Solans. PRODUCED BY: Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma. WITH THE COLLABORATION OF: Consell de Mallorca, departament de Cultura, Patrimoni i Esports; Fundación Turismo Palma de Mallorca 365; Norma Editorial. LOCATION: Planta 0. DATES: From 19th March to 19th June of 2016. OPENING: 18th March 2016 at 8.00 pm. RESEARCH: The Es Baluard staff. INSTALLATION: Pep Fluxà Salvà and the Es Baluard staff. DESIGN AND IMAGE: Hastalastantas. LABELING: Julià Homar, ImpresRapit. TEXTS: Piedad Solans. TRANSLATIONS: Carme Llull, Nicola Walters. INSURANCE: Correduría March-JLT. TRANSPORT: Balears Art i Llar. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Piedad Solans, Lida Abdul, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Sabrina Amrani, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Amina Benbouchta, Gohar Dashti, Rena Effendi, Yara El- Sherbini, Mariam Ghani, Kinda Hassan, Larissa Sansour, Eva Shakouri, Silvia Martínez, Jal Hamad, Soren Lind, Joana Maria Pomar, Francisca Niell, Carolina Vicente, José Bermúdez, Galería Sabrina Amrani, Galería La Caja Blanca. Es Baluard Press Office: Jesús Torné ([email protected]). Tel. + 34 971 908 201 ACTIVITIES: Visit for members of Amics d’Es Baluard on 18th March 2016 at 7.00 pm with the exhibition curator, Piedad Solans, and the Es Baluard’s director, Nekane Aramburu. The workshop “Conflictes arreu. Com ens arriben?” (conflicts abroad. How do we receive them?), from a project of the Es Baluard’s Educational Development team, is inspired in the exhibition. Aimed at children between 6 and 12 years of age, it will be on the Saturdays 2nd, 16th, 23rd and 30th April, 2016 at 11.30 am. Enrolment by calling 971 908 201. Price: 1€ per child. Project in collaboration with Fòrum Comunicació, Educació i Ciutadania de les Illes Balears. Exhibition produced by: With the collaboration of: More information: Es Baluard Website http://www.esbaluard.org Es Baluard on Twitter http://twitter.com/EsBaluard Es Baluard on Youtube Es Baluard on Facebook http://www.youtube.com/user/MuseuEsBaluard bit.ly/civ6aT Es Baluard Press Office: Jesús Torné ([email protected]). Tel. + 34 971 908 201 “Waste Lands” Text by Piedad Solans, the exhibition curator Waste Lands: devastated areas of land. Through the work of ten artists from countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco and Palestine, the exhibition broaches the landscapes and the urban, social, anthropological and archaeological environments in countries destroyed and impoverished by wars, the post-colonial inheritance, the predatory voraciousness of the big oil and gas companies and the energy speculation of the world powers, state terrorism and violence and local, political and religious struggles, from the 2000s until the present day. Lands destroyed by powers and historical and structural conflicts, transformed into residual arms depots, camps where excluded populations and refugee families live perpetually, plundered ruins and abandoned places, sterile, intoxicated soil that has become desert, electrified border fences. Usurped lands and pillaged assets, places of blood, crimes and daily attacks. The artists who make up this exhibition have different histories, cultures and narratives. They have witnessed, in their own living memory or that of their relatives and peoples, forced migrations, colonialism, war, exile, refugee and foreigner status. But they also have knowledge of great civilisations, the anthropological wealth of communities, the ancient cities and medinas, the great commercial routes and native and regional intersections, immense spaces and ethnic, anthropological and linguistic diversity. Border zones, migration, translation, trans-nationality, post-colonial subjects and post-conflict conditions are now recurrent concerns in their work. Their status, as Mariam Ghani indicates, is “borderline”: they inhabit the frontier between different worlds. They travel from Iraq to Berlin, from Palestine to Oslo, from Afghanistan to New York, from Cairo, Azerbaijan, Iran or Beirut to London. They were trained – not without tensions – amongst different languages, cultures, generations, countries, experiences. “The multiple identities we claim”, says Ghani, “always exist in a kind of tension, which is of course intensified when the places that contain them enter into conflict”. According to the Russian linguist M. M. Bakhtin, who described the condition of borderline as a confusing position, “the point of coincidence and contention”, this could be the ideal position from which to produce new languages. The ideal position from which to make art as outsiders and simultaneously as observers and participants. In their videos and photographs Gohar Dashti, Rena Effendi, Mariam Ghani and Tamara Abdul Hadi set forth the consequences wars and abuse of economic power have on lands and populations, whilst Larissa Sansour and Yara El-Sherbini, with a certain amount of irony, denounce the “western” topics and occupation of living space and territory, conflict zones and the need for a home state through sculptures, publications, performances and videos. The criticism of dictatorships and archaisms and the call for freedom through artistic, cultural or curative practices is tackled simultaneously by Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Amina Benbouchta and Lida Abdul in video and installations, and the ideological and spectacular role of the communications media and of the “policies” of terror is revealed by Kinda Hassan, as is the solitude of people in inhospitable, desolate environments in the videos and photographs of Gohar Dashti. Es Baluard Press Office: Jesús Torné ([email protected]). Tel. + 34 971 908 201 However, these artists do not consent to being victims. Using their borderline positions and their experience of migration and conflicts, they show the inexhaustible stamina of their countries to remain, adapt and replace. They denounce violence and injustice, the exploitation and neglect of vulnerable people, the destruction of their cultures and their lands by local and world powers. And they show the inexhaustible capacity of resilience people have to survive, in solidarity with each other, in adverse conditions. Es Baluard Press Office: Jesús Torné ([email protected]). Tel. + 34 971 908 201 Biography of Piedad Solans Doctor in History of Art, researcher and exhibitions curator. Carmen de Burgos Award Feminism for the article Feminismo y poder, 1996. Author of the books Accionismo vienés y Arte y resistencia y de ensayos como Mitologías posmodernas, Lo sublime posmoderno, Mitos y delitos de las nuevas tecnologías, Estética, nihilismo y Wonderland, Un mundo en ruinas, El espectáculo de las imágenes, Mujeres en el Islam. Feminismos, políticas, exilios. Collaborator of the art magazines Lápiz and Artecontexto, she’s published in others like Archipiélago, Kalías, Claves de Razón Práctica, El Viejo Topo, Sileno y La Balsa de la Medusa. Editor of Pensar, construir, habitar and co-editor of Mujeres en el sistema del arte en España. Director of the seminars “Arte y estética”, “Arte y psicoanàlisis”, “Feminismos, políticas y teorías 1/2”, “Lo que dicen las mujeres. Textos, lenguajes, narrativas”. Guest speaker in universities, museums and art centres like Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid), Caixa Forum (Madrid), Casa Árabe (Madrid), Colegio de arquitectos (Málaga), UNED (Ávila, Madrid), Feria Estampa, Madrid), Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca, Fundació Sa Nostra (Palma), among others. Curator and coordinator of projects of Eva Lootz, Marina Abramovic, Paloma Navares, Democracia, Magdalena Jetelová, Georges Rousse, Mariam Ghani, Tadashi Kawamata, among others, with exhibitions like “Espacios fronterizos”, “In Between”, “Nudos” o “Contra el público”. She’s been co-curator at the Biennale of Sao Paolo/Valencia 2007