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Alaa Abu Asad

Alaa Abu Asad is an artist, researcher, and photographer from Palestine. His practice is centered around developing and experiencing alternative trajectories where values ​​​​of (re) presentation, translation, viewing, reading, and understanding intersect.

I LOVE IT WHEN TRANSLATION CAN BE FOUND TO AGREE WITH OUR WEIRD DESIRES - With Ulufer Çelik, 2017-2020 / Available at BOOKS @ RET & amp; WALTER books & amp; KIOSK Rotterdam / Do you know what semsiye means? Do you use the word kirbaç for a whip? For around three years, we have been asking each other about identical words used in both of our languages: Turkish and (vernacular) Palestinian Arabic. It is a process that can last for good - as long as our friendship lives. We spend time together uttering words that are held in common and draw them, discovering whether they carry the same meaning, are slightly different, or are false friends.
THE DOG CHASED ITS TAIL TO BITE IT OFF - Ongoing research, 2018– In 1823 Philipp Franz von Siebold sailed under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to Japan, where he used his role as resident doctor and scientist at the Dejima trading post to amass a vast botanical collection. Among the species von Siebold introduced to Europe was Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica). Today considered a “non native invasive species” in places like the United Kingdom, the plant is now treated as a scourge. Alaa Abu Asad meditatively traces the violent, xenophobic speech used to describe the plant and its parallels in the language used to describe human migrants. On a planet where ultimately very little is truly native, Abu Asad questions which plant species become accepted as the rightful inhabitants of nation states over time and which are forever relegated to the foreign. Tulips, though first imported to Holland from the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, are today proudly claimed a national treasure. No such fate has with the Japanese knotweed. The plant remains pursued across countries and continents as every conceivable attempt is made to eradicate it. Japanese knotweed survives where other species cannot. Its nonhierarchical root system enables it to thrive in industrial wastelands, erupt through concrete, and even disrupt electrical lines. And yet little thought is given to the underlying causes aiding this plant to flourish, from pollution to reduced frost brought on by climate change. The plant is blamed for the wrongdoings of others in the name of expediency and self-preservation. For Abu Asad, these plants reveal to us the human condition. Even as many try to expunge it from the earth, Japanese knotweed's resilience continues to insist on presence. Amanda Sarroff for Van Eyck Academy open studios, 2020
Stuttering Gestures / ??????? ??????? - Live audiovisual performance, 35' With Bekriah Mawasi, 2022 "Read the Room" biennial, Mophradat and Kaaitheater, Brussels 2022 ‘Stuttering Gestures’ is a proposal for reading and listening concurrently; a live audiovisual performance that contemplates movement, stillness, and silence as a formative succession. An invitation to adapt to phonetic and lexical nuances and the variations in dialects and realities. The work looks into the alphabet as a nascent basket that engenders narratives and disclosures. The artists observe fragmented stories, bodies, sounds, and gestures. The selection of words and images springs from conversations and chats on language, dialects, and speech. The visual sequences echo the rhythmic repetition.
Glossolalia / ??????? - Single-channel video, 14'37" With Ignace Cami, 2021 This video is produced as part of the exhibition project Under the Tower / Onder de Kerktoren / ??? ????? Glossolalia reveals poetic diversity and is an ode to the pleasure of looking at images and listening to sounds.In Glossolalia, tonal language or speaking in tongues transforms difficult communication and misunderstandings into playful and refined poetry. References to the online gatherings of Under the Tower / Onder de Kerktoren / ??? ????? exhibition-project are present but never overbearing. Glossolalia is a conversation between the artists, and through audiovisual elements it offers a window on the world, an invite to a contemplative journey.
At the Verge of the Worldlessness
At the Verge of the Worldlessness - Single-channel video 4:00 2023 Relying on the sound edits and its effects, this stop motion video tries to delve deeper into understanding the photograph, exceeding its specific time and place, and exposing what lies beyond what is seen in each image. At the Verge of Worldlessness unfolds the multiple layers of the photographs (time, place, photographer, photographed object/subject) to unravel a new world, yet another one, and so forth. What forms of life are there behind these military cement road-barriers coloured in white and green and numbered from 5 to 10? And what do these numbers stand for? Has there ever been a water brook running in the valley where a brutal street walled-bridge construction is erected now, enabling colonial settlers to reach area A from area B, or C? Can a close-up photograph of the cement-segmental-constructed separation wall in Palestine really block the spectator’s sight? And where is this Palestinian lady heading to? Where from? And what is in those black plastic bags she is carrying? Are they plastic? The film looks into and beyond each photograph in search of any gap, opening or crack visible or invisible, imagining what might be ‘hiding’ in them. What can these photographs teach us about their time and place, its past, its present-day lives, and any possible foreseeing for its future?

Boek Klup #1

Datum:
Locatie: PrintRoom
In samenwerking met: Ulufer Çelik

Join us on Museumnacht 010 for the launch of Boek Klup with artists Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva, Alaa Abu Asad & Ulufer Çelik!

+ Book Launch: Colonial Banality by Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva

+ Draw, translate, play with Alaa Abu Asad & Ulufer Çelik

+ Make your own recycled riso-print notebook

+ Polyglot karaoké

https://printroom.org/2023/02/24/04-03-22-museumnacht-boek-klup-1/

De wereld van de Rotterdamse kunstenaar, 61 – Alaa Abu Asad

Datum:
Locatie: Online
In samenwerking met: Walter van Teeffelen

De wereld van de Rotterdamse kunstenaar, 61 – Alaa Abu Asad
Afgelopen zomer zag ik bij de Wild Summer of Art bij Brutus in Rotterdam een paar mooie kleurrijke foto’s van bloemen, onder andere klaprozen. Het waren ‘wilde bloemen’, op straat gefotografeerd door Alaa Abu Asad.

https://ifthenisnow.eu/nl/verhalen/de-wereld-van-de-rotterdamse-kunstenaar-61-alaa-abu-asad
Deze kunstenaar heeft nog geen toekenningen.