Caramblogage

When Heba told me she had the prints, my first instinct was to burn them. It had been a week since our first call concerning a series of golden silkscreen prints. She,  Don and the manager of the gallery representing Heba had discovered them by accident at the Berlin Art Fair. The prints are rather unremarkable- a series of nine, subdued silkscreens of pictures taken off the internet, printed with a shimmering, golden hue. They reminded me of my grandmothers' furniture in Cairo. What they depicted, however, was very familiar to us- we had made it, and these were blatant copies of our documentation of the work on the Homeland set. Set picture: Bottom left, next to the flag: This series does not represent the view of the artists. What they had come across was a series by David Krippendorff entitled “This Show does not Represent the View of the Artist”, a tiny play on one of the slogans we used. I was somewhat flattered, at first, at this attempt at an...

Field of Vision - Homeland Is Not A Series from Field Of Vision on Vimeo . These posts are grouped around parts of the "Syrian Monologue" by Wasim Ghrioui from the film  "Homeland is not a series."  You can find a full interview with  Heba Amin,   Don Karl  and  Caram   here . All experiences and views in this are my own and may not reflect anyone else's. Izmir, November 6th-10th This doesn ’ t mean we all like each other , we don ’ t have time to like each other I’m invited to a planning meeting for one of the networks I’m part of. I meet an old friend of mine, the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve missed her and her waters. Most of the time, I am online with Don and Heba after the meetings are over, going over changes, edits and new cuts. I am not very sociable, although the only working internet connection in the hotel is in the main hall we gather in. By the end of the meeting, rather than feel more connected to people I have been wo...

Field of Vision - Homeland Is Not A Series from Field Of Vision on Vimeo . These posts are grouped around parts of the "Syrian Monologue" by Wasim Ghrioui from the film "Homeland is not a series." You can find a full interview with Heba Amin, Don Karl and Caram here . All experiences and views in this are my own and may not reflect anyone else's. Berlin, October 16th.  In the middle of the media frenzy surrounding the “Homeland Incident”, we receive an email we did not expect: Laura Poitras, best known for her Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour, would like to commission the newly-formed Arabian Street Artists to make a short film for her. As we documented our work on the set as extensively as possible, we send her some footage and agree to talk about this soon. I’m leaving to Beirut tomorrow, to join a project working with Syrian refugees in Shatila, one of the oldest refugee settlements in the country. Considering that for the past days, my...

Srdjan Tunic did an interview with me for SeeCult in the Balkans. This is an abbreviated, English translation.  The original and full version of this interview was published by the Serbian-based SEEcult portal:  http://www.seecult.org/vest/dijalog-pocinje-hakovanjem   Homeland , a U.S.A. political thriller television series, based on the Israeli series Hatufim ( Prisoners of War ), is running from 2011 and until now both won several awards (Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy) and was a target to serious criticisms.  The series mainly focus on the U.S. led military interventions and espionage (the main actor, Claire Danes plays the CIA agent Carrie Mathison) in the Near and Middle East, from Pakistan to Lebanon, echoing the current war on terrorism. A Washington Post article from 2014 says that ‘Homeland’ is the most bigoted show on television due to its misrepresentation of Arabs, Muslims and Islam - either being misleading about the culture, history and pronunc...