The Legacies and Memories of Bahrain

INNOKA BARTLETT interviews co-curator of Bahrain Art Week 2018, Kaneka Subberwal. Kaneka Subberwal’s elegant articulations of thought, as revealed in this interview, was reflected in her recent co-curation of Bahrain Art Week 2018. The founder and co-curator of Art Select and Bahrain Art Week discussed the depth and intricacies of ‘Accumulation: Legacy and Memory’, the title and theme of the exhibition. This idea of accumulation unfolded throughout the exhibition, as artworks explored concepts of built up legacies of loss, and the memories of traditional as well as contemporary Bahrain. Kaneka founded Art Select in 2008, an art consultancy and creative platform. ArtBAB (Art Bahrain Across Borders) is Art Select’s flagship enterprise. It is an annual art fair that is aimed at exhibiting Bahrain’s Modern Art movement, tracing its development over the past 50 years. Bahrain Art Week is a project which was generated under ArtBAB. It seems to be cumulative…Continue Reading

The Legacies and Memories of Bahrain

Sonti Ramirez

SONTI RAMIREZ uses photography to explore interlocking urban identities and environments from a micro-perspective.  Upon talking to Sonti Ramirez, I am struck by her exuberant vivacity, which is clearly present in her highly curated and delicate photographs of minority presences. Her interest in photography began very simply, when she purchased an old film camera from Brick Lane. This provided her with a way to begin to visually documenting her local area of Camden – both its historical buildings and its residents. Always driven by a story, she applies the same approach to her work today, as she tries to “figure out people’s identities via spaces”. She explains how she wants to use her photographs to reclaim the concept of “otherness” from its negative connotations, and evoke complexities and details that others tend to not notice. Mainly, her interests lie in the how the spaces we inhabit influence our collective identity, both past and…Continue Reading

Sonti Ramirez

Save Péniche Anako

FLOSSIE WILDBLOOD interviews the team behind Péniche Anako, a Parisian cultural barge facing extinction due to a new wave of gentrification in the French capital.  Paris doesn’t exactly spring to mind as a city with an artistic scene under threat. There seems to be plenty of culture to go around in the City of Light, with its galleries, theatres, opera houses and general aura of romanticism. But beyond stereotype, and a far cry from the Monets and Manets of the Musée D’Orsay and the palatial walls of the Louvre, there exists a different, equally important side to Parisian culture. It’s one that’s more progressive, more accessible, and more reflective of the city’s diversity today – and it’s this that’s currently at risk. This is no longer the city Joni Mitchell sung about as being ‘old and cold and settled in its ways’ in 1971, dominated by tradition and big C ‘Culture’.…Continue Reading

Save Péniche Anako

Tejas Verdes

JESS HOWLEY-WELLS talks to director EMILY LOUIZOU about her upcoming production Tejas Verdes. Fermín Cabal’s 2004 play, Tejas Verdes, is ‘a haunting and compelling piece about humanity’s brutal ability to cause pain and horror.’ The play takes its name from an idyllic Chilean seaside resort adapted into a torture camp during General Pinochets dictatorship, from 1973 to 1990, and focuses on the story of Colorina, ‘one woman … who comes to symbolise the 3,000 who were violently killed’ during this time. Forty-four years after the coup that brought about this regime of terror, UCL alumna and director of Collide Theatre, Emily Louizou, brings the play back to life. It was instantly clear that Louizou’s connection with the text was inseparable from her deep respect for the story it tells, as was her awareness of the necessity to strike a balance between theatricality and sensitivity: ‘You have to be careful with the way that you deal with texts…Continue Reading

Tejas Verdes

Creating Platforms

JESS HOWLEY-WELLS talks to TORI ALLEN-MARTIN about her new show Wretch at VAULT Festival. Coming into 2017, Victoria Sadler–a prolific arts and culture writer based in London–compiled a stock-take of the work of female playwrights across six major theatres in London – or the ‘Big Six’ as she calls them. These were: the National Theatre, The Old Vic, The Young Vic, Royal Court Theatre, Donmar Warehouse and the Almeida. Her findings were simply offensive. Of the twenty-two shows put on across The National Theatre last year, only four were written by women (excluding co-credits). The Young Vic’s eighteen productions gave only three female playwrights a voice – and eclipsing even these meagre figures, Donmar Warehouse didn’t showcase a single female playwright in the entirety of 2016. It is not as if there are no excellent female playwrights in the industry – you need only look to Debbie Tucker Green, Nina Raine, Bola…Continue Reading

Creating Platforms