Sharjah Art Foundation announced the winners of the 2022 Publishing Grant during this year’s Focal Point Art Book Fair on Saturday. The winners are LIBERATION RADIO by Chimurenga, ‘Between the Brush and the Archive’ by Abdullah Al-Mutairi and ‘The Specter of Ancestors Becoming’ by RAW Material Company and Tuan Andrew Nguyen.
Selected by Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, the winning projects will be co-published by the Foundation and launched during Focal Point 2023 and 2024.
For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app..
The ceremony also included the launch of the 2021 Publishing Grant winners’ publications: ‘State of Cinema’ by Bakhita Al Ameri, ‘Landwalks: Across Palestine and South Africa’ by Tomà Berlanda and Meghan Ho-Tong, ‘How to Not Build a Nation’ from The Forest Curriculum and (Fine) Arts dissertations from Reliable Copy (Nihaal Faizel and Sarasija Subramanian).
Almost 400 applicants, double the number last year, responded to the international open call. Most of the entries came from Egypt, followed by India, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. Of the total applications, 47 percent were in Arabic, while 70 percent were submitted in the Experimental Publications category.
Proposals were received from, or on behalf of, artists, writers, publishers, researchers, magazines, fanzines, collectives, collaborative research projects, museums, publishers, newspapers, and non-profit cultural organizations.
2022 beneficiaries
Chimurenga’s ‘LIBERATION RADIO’ explores the cultural and broadcast initiatives of African liberation movements in their struggle against colonialism and apartheid in the Swahili and Central African regions. He traces his connections to anti-colonial movements across the continent, such as Nasserism in Egypt and independence movements in French-occupied Algeria. Chimurenga is a pan-African platform for writing, art and politics founded by Ntone Edjabe in 2002. Taking many forms and bringing together multiple voices from across Africa and the diaspora, Chimurenga operates as an innovative platform for free ideas and political reflection on Africa. by Africans.
Al-Mutairi’s ‘Between the Brush and the Archive’ looks at the personal archive of Kuwaiti artist Khalifa Al-Qattan from the 1950s to the late 1970s. The text, to be published in Arabic and English in a limited print run Of 300 copies, it shows how Al-Qattan’s practice exemplifies the experimental and countercultural energy that was prevalent in Kuwait at the beginning of the country’s modernization.
Kuwait-based artist and writer, Al-Mutairi is part of the contemporary art collective GCC. His work has been exhibited at institutions such as the Sharjah Art Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany.
RAW Material Company and Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s ‘The Specter of Ancestors Becoming’ focuses on the Vietnamese-Senegalese diaspora, built on the French colonial company that recruited Senegalese riflemen to fight for the French in the First Indochina War (1946- 1954). By exploring the relationship between the riflemen and the Vietnamese women they met, this community-sourced publication, stemming from a collaboration with the existing diaspora, sheds light on the stories of female community figures and their role in the Senegalese social fabric. .
Tuan Andrew Nguyen is an artist who explores strategies of political resistance enacted through counter-memory and post-memory.
RAW Material Company, a Dakar-based arts initiative, is involved in curatorial practice, art education, residencies, knowledge production, and the archiving of art theory and criticism.
SAF Publishing Scholarship
The Publishing Grant invites cultural producers in the following fields to submit project proposals: art and cultural scholars, translators, writers, publishers, independent publishers and publishers, collectives, and non-profit institutions.
Projects must contribute to the production of original ideas and critical thinking and take an experimental and innovative approach to publication.
The grant is committed to supporting printed material that stands out for its intellectual, graphic, and material qualities. While the capstone project must be submitted in print, an eBook version or digital reading component is recommended.
Sharjah Art Foundation provides a total of $30,000 to multiple grantees in addition to publishing and distribution support.
Read more: Sharjah Art Foundation presents inaugural season of five performances in Emirate
