Volume 6  
 
 
Introduction  

Contemporary Practices is a biannual publication covering visual art movements from the Middle East, including Iran and Turkey. Founded in 2007, the journal observes regional and international developments, from the gallery to the museum, the auction house to the art fair. Covering emerging and established producers in the region and its diaspora, our writers vary from cultural anthropologists to artists and curators committed to sharing their groundbreaking pursuits. 

Volume 6 / 2010
Arts from and around Palestine have been granted maximum attention over the past decade and more particularly the past year. Due to the recognition offered to young Palestinian voices, merged with emerging and well established artists, we decided to take a closer look at the creative voices of Palestinian origins. Offering insights into the lives of a select choice of artists who recognize their physical journeys as a continuum to a never-ending passage of settlements and displacements, Volume 6 realizes that even to those who never belonged to their homeland, felt displaced even from their own emotional occupancies.

Steve Sabella offers insights into his own displacements as a father to a Swiss-Palestinian daughter, a husband to a Swiss wife, and an artist living in London. A frequent visitor to Jerusalem and Ramallah, his constant movement of exiting seems to darken the sensibility of entering and remaining. From a conversation with his young girl, he realizes that even through his own child, the dialogue is displaced from lacking the same conversational language, and even though little Cecile Elise Sabella does not speak Arabic or understand her father’s culture, she does however carry a desire to go back to a “home” she was never part of before. Sabella’s dialogue begins to take form of visual vignettes, and his understandings start to appear on negative formats.

From the abundance of artists actively involved in the art scene today, Volume 6 profiles: Hany Zurob, Larissa Sansour, Amira Mannah, Raeda Saadeh, Jawad Al Malhi, Bita Ghazelayagh, Khalil Rabah, Emily Jacir, Mary Tuma, Maliheh Afnan, Steve Sabella, Taysir Batniji, Layan Shawabkeh, Adam Henein, Diana El Hadid, Nadine Hammam, Amr Mounib, Amal Kenawy, Hany Rashed, Galila Nawar, Wael Darwesh, Lara Baladi, Jowhara Al Saud, Ayman Yossri Daydban, Parviz Tanavoli and Farhad Moshiri, amongst many more, by the eloquent authorship of: Tina Sherwell, Rose Issa, Juliet Cesar, Sarah Rogers, Nour Wali, Jyoti Dhar, Janet Rady, Dominiqie Ellis, Christina Eberhart, Kelly Carmichael, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Yasmine El Rashidi and Martina Corgnati to say the least.

Putting Volume 6 together allowed for the opportunity to work with an effervescent team of contributors, cultural thinkers, and artists who expose an abundance of wealthy minds to their visual susceptibilities outside the box of skeptical control. Palestine is only a launch pad to what New York's Iran Inside Out had to say alongside the Blazing Grace found in East Central London. With the new acquisitions by the British Museum while in search of the Why Not? voices sought out by the Palace of the Arts in Cairo succeeding the Invisible Presence designed at the Mevelvi Sama' Khana in the same Old Islamic City. Searching for the link that connects each artist beyond their geographical identities could only mean how much this region can offer to the world.

You can find us at the Dubai Art Fair and be on a look-out for The Contemporary Practices 14 Meter Bus Project. For more information Click Here.