Speculative Narratives from Egypt and the Middle East: The Tellers at Villa Romana

Sumac Space, a non-profit platform founded in 2020, engages with contemporary art from the Middle East through digital programs, critical writing, and research. Now Davood Madadpoor, one of its founders, is curating The Tellers exhibition at the Villa Romana artists’ house in Florence, featuring Maha Mamoon and Basim Magdy, two artists who occupy important positions in the Deutsche Bank Collection. A floor in the Frankfurt head office is devoted to Mamoon, and Magdy was Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2016. 

The Tellers is about a speculative future as imagined by five artists from Egypt and Iran. Whether the scenarios are realistic, utopian, or fantastical, this possible future perspective is always meant to inspire us to reimagine and reshape our present. “Artists resort to storytelling to construct new myths and histories,” says Davood Madadpoor, “to question forgotten and repressed history, and to use it as a simulacrum for social critique. For them, becoming storytellers means analyzing narratives and creating new truths outside of the prevailing cultural narrative.”

While a central theme in the work of Egyptian artist Maha Mamoon is the future of metropolises and urban culture, Basel-based artist Basim Magdy is concerned with a possible failure. In his often psychedelically colorful paintings, photographic works, and films, the artist interrogates collective utopias and formulates his doubts about dogmas and ideologies. In his post-human future, humanity has already departed, or is in the process of disappearing, because it is incapable of learning from its mistakes.

Mohamed Abdelkarim is an artist, performer, filmmaker, and scientist who lives and works in Cairo and Maastricht. In his artistic work he deploys performative acts such as storytelling, singing, inventing, and, more recently, speculating. His latest project explores the landscape as a witness of “a history we've missed and a future we haven't participated in yet.”

Ali Eslam, an artist and engineer from Iran who lives in Amsterdam, has been exploring virtual reality since 2014. His work includes multi-year research projects in which he investigates speculations and world constructions. Egyptian artist Islam Shabana explores the intersections between technology, mythology, and Islamic philosophy in his multimedia, often virtual, works. In doing so, he deals with poetry, science fiction, and speculations about the future.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Villa Romana will host a one-day symposium on Saturday, March 19, 2022, starting at 11 am. Through contributions by Raffaella Baccolini (Università di Bologna), Nat Muller (curator and writer), and Santiago Zabala (Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona), the main aspects of the exhibition will be presented and discussed, followed by a concluding performance by Mohamed Abdelkarim. Villa Romana is one of the oldest commitments of Deutsche Bank and its foundations. It has been supporting the artist residence since the 1920s.

www.villaromana.org

March 18 – April 29, 2022