3rd Guangzhou Triennial – Middle East Video Channel

6 September – 16 November 2008, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou

The Resistance[s] exhibition presents a selection of experimental film and video art from the Middle East and North Africa. Featuring artists from a variety of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, these intimate, poetic and documentary works are witness to the region's complexity, vitality and diversity of creative energies. Distanced from the usual stereotypes, the artists aim to explore the existential, political and aesthetic issues of our times while opening up to new narrative perspectives that break with our media's monotonous and repetitive imagery. 

The Resistance[s] artworks play, beyond the covered themes, with contextual relationships by blurring the notions of a here and there. The introduction of storytelling and narration proves the flexibility of the documentary format and reveals hidden pockets of reality with unpredictable scenarios, failed aspiration or unimaginable futures.

The artists and filmmakers of Resistance[s] have a rich theoretical and practical background. In alternating established authors like Jayce Salloum, Zineb Sedira, Jalal Toufic and Mounir Fatmi with emerging artists like Waël Noureddine, Katia Kameli and Pauline M'Barek, the exhibition stresses the importance of cinematographic art within contemporary Arab art. During the beginning of the 20^th century, poets and novelists were among the more radical critics within the Arab world. Many of them took an active role in emerging socialist and feminist political movements. A number of Arab filmmakers started as writers. As video has become more accessible, it has taken up the role of the pen: a handy medium, portable, and if necessary, disposable, that has the ability to condense and express political situations in a personal manner. 

Curators: Khaled Ramadan (Middle East Video Channel), Silke Schmickl and Christine Abdelnour (Resistance[s]) 
Artists: Usama Alshaibi, Taysir Batniji, Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Frédérique Devaux, Mounir Fatmi, Jayce Salloum, Lamya Gargash, Waël Noureddine, Nassim Amaouche, Al Fadhil, Joude Gorani, Katia Kameli, Bouchra Khalili, Nesrine Khodr, Pauline M'Barek, Zineb Sedira, Jalal Toufic