São Paulo – The 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc Videobrasil will open on November 6th this year in São Paulo, and its competitive show, Southern Panoramas, will include artists from the Arab World. The runner-ups, who have been shortlisted from out of a pool of 2,000 projects, include Akram Zaatari, Mahmoud Khaled, Ali Cherri and Roy Dib, from Lebanon. A total of 94 pieces, including installations, video installations, drawings, sculptures, paintings, artist books, and videos have been shortlisted for the festival, according to information from the Videobrasil website.
“Middle East productions are very important, the festival is politically engaged, and the region’s current output is marked by said engagement,” says Videobrasil communications coordinator Marcio Junji Sono. The festival focuses on Latin America, Africa, Oceania, Eastern Europe, parts of Asia, and the Middle East. The goal is to turn the spotlight to regions that are not completely inserted into the art scenes of North America and Western Europe.
Akram Zaatari has competed at several other editions of the Brazilian festival. The holder of a degree in Architecture from the American University of Beirut and of a master’s in Media Studies from the New School for Social Research de Nova York, he works with video and photography and is one of the founders of Beirut’s Arab Image Foundation. Ali Cherri holds a degree in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut and a master’s in performing arts from the DasArts, in Amsterdam. His work is marked by a combination of political issues and personal memories, and he won a prize at the 15th Videobrasil Festival.
Mahmoud Khaled lives between Beirut, Lebanon and Alexandria, Egypt. He combines video, photography, text and installation to address personal, political, historical and social issues. Khaled holds a baccalaureate in Fine Arts from the University of Alexandria. Roy Dib holds a degree in Theatre from the Lebanese University and is one of the founders of theatre group Zoukak. He works with video and writes about culture for a newspaper.
Southern Panoramas is intended to cast an eye on discourses and propositions, tackling aesthetical, political, social and subjective issues of contemporary times and the tensions of the developing world. According to Sono, the list of the ten Festival winners will be released at the end of the first week. The first place will win a cash prize, and the remaining nine will be granted residency scholarships in different parts of the world. One of the residencies will be undertaken at Lebanon’s Ach Kal Awan institute.
The competing works will remain on show until February 2nd 2014 at Cinesesc, which is located on Rua Augusta, and at Sesc Pompeia. Meetings and debates featuring artists and scholars will also be held. The Festival usually includes another major show, and this year’s edition at Sesc Pompeia will focus on Videobrasil’s 30th anniversary. The association is directed by Solange Farkas and works to foster, disseminate, and map out contemporary art, in addition to forming audiences and promoting exchange among artists, curators and researchers.
The full program, including lectures and artists, will be released by Videobrasil in the next few days. For additional information go to http://site.videobrasil.org.br.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
