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| Date: | Apr 30, 2013 7:00–8:30pm |
| Organized by: | The Townhouse Gallery |
| Venue: | The Townhouse Gallery |
| Address: | 10 Nabrawy Street (off Champollion Street) Downtown, Cairo |
Journey to Ard al Amal/ The Land of Hope”
Heroes from Syrian collective memory rise again and propose future models for utopia; an artists talk and open studio by Foundland.
Since the beginning of 2011, Foundland (Lauren Alexander and Ghalia Elsrakbi) has been collecting digital material such as images, video and stories spread on social media within the context of the Syrian uprising.
Social media as a tool for political expression in Syria is relatively new, yet has rapidly become mobilised for many different purposes and by many players. Their image collection, and resulting publication, installations and works analyse and contemplate the breadth and variety of protest material and propaganda produced over the past two years by secret hacker armies and amateur photoshppers alike. Their latest work explores unexpected connections between popular anime cartoons, activism and the location of the hero figure in a sea of digital images.
For their talk and open studio at the Townhouse gallery in Cairo, Laura Alexander and Ghalia Elskrabi invite the public to reflect with them on the significance and legacy of Syrian digital images, while they simultaneously consider future scenarios based on our observations collected in Cairo over the past 2 months.
BIO:
Foundland is an art and design practice founded in 2009. Duo Lauren Alexander and Ghalia Elsrakbi are based in Amsterdam. Foundland aims to combine a curiosity and passion for design, art, writing, politics and critical ideas to create visual and textual explorations of research topics.
During 2012 Foundland presented at various exhibitions, festivals and workshops; such as at Kadist Foundation (Paris), Impakt Festival, De Appel and BAK (The Netherlands). In 2013 we will be exhibiting at the Damascus Visual Arts Festival in Istanbul. We have contributed essays and visuals to international journals such as Open Magazine (The Netherlands), Esse (Canada) and Ibraaz online journal about the Middle East. We continually search for innovative media to represent and spread our research work.
