Innovative Curatorial Projects – Paris / SingaporeUsama Alshaibi
*1969, Baghdad, Irak. Lives and works in Chicago, USA.
Usama Alshaibi has produced and directed numerous short films, feature length films (Muhammad and Jane) and music videos for a variety of musicians, including Bobby Conn. Usama Alshaibi is the the founder and director of the Chicago based Z Film Festival and has participated in many conferences and workshops. In 2005 he has completed a documentary on his homeland and its current situation: Nice Bombs.
Allahu Akbar / Iraq / 2003 / 5'10 / 4:3
Rhythm and repetition plays an important role in the animated film Allahu Akbar by Usama Alshaibi. With this film, Alshaibi questions the confrontation between tradition and modernity by drawing inspiration from geometric motives of Islamic art. The artist offers a re-interpretation of these motifs through computer animation. By turning the shapes in different direction, new images are generated, freeing them from their fixed state. Traditional spiritual values feed the present and open up to a modern perspective.