Qatar Museums to Organize Exhibition in Venice to Unveil New Voices in Film, Video

Qatar Museums plans for a major exhibition to coincide with the 60th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale

Qatar Museums on Wednesday announced plans for a major exhibition to coincide with the 60th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, bringing the visions of dozens of filmmakers and video artists from the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia to the art worlds most prestigious stage.

The exhibition, titled Your ghosts are mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices, on view at ACPPalazzo Franchetti from April 19 to Nov. 24, will present a journey in moving images through contemporary experiences of community life and memory, transnational crossings and exile.

Your ghosts are mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices is produced by Qatar Museums and co-organised by Doha Film Institute, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum in collaboration with ACP Art Capital Partners. The exhibition is curated by Matthieu Orlean with the collaboration of Majid Al Remaihi and Virgile Alexandre, with exhibition design by architects and spatial designers Cookies (Federico Martelli and Clément Perisse).

The advisory committee includes Fatma Hassan Al Remaihi, Zeina Arida and Catherine Grenier. Project management is by Minas Stratigos and Khalifa Al Thani is the Exhibition Manager.

The exhibition will offer an all-encompassing journey through ten galleries, each dedicated to themes such as deserts (cradles of civilization and places of rebirth), ruins (relics of culture), womens voices, borders (demarcations between allowed and forbidden places) and exile, as experienced through selected films supported, co-financed or initiated by the Doha Film Institute and video works from the collections of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum. The films and video works span genres including fiction, documentary, animation, and memoir, often blending invented narrative with fact, modernity with tradition and spirituality with postcolonial sensibilities.

HE Chairperson of Qatar Museums and of the Doha Film Institute Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani said: "Opening at the same time as the Venice Art Biennale and continuing throughout the presentation of the Venice Film Festival, Your ghosts are mine will open the eyes of multitudes of international viewers to the ideas, the feelings, and above all the artistic visions of todays filmmakers from the Arab world and neighboring regions. By presenting this exhibition, Qatar Museums advances its key mission of encouraging understanding across borders through cultural exchange, while the Doha Film Institute fulfils its mandate to nurture and promote the rising talents of our region." 

For her part, Chief Executive Officer of Doha Film Institute (DFI) Fatma Hassan Al Remaihi added: "For nearly 15 years, the Institute has worked to correct the misrepresentation of Arab culture, stories, and aesthetics by nurturing important new voices in cinema. We are proud to have supported over 800 diverse projects from 74 countries, underlining Qatar’s commitment to empower a new generation of storytellers and bring balance to the global film landscape". She pointed out that the DFI’s creative ecosystem to foster talents from the Arab world and beyond has enabled them to connect with new audiences, and we look forward to visitors discovering the unique perspectives assembled by a team of experts including Qatari filmmakers Majid Al Remaihi and Khalifa Al-Thani.

"As co-organizers of Your ghosts are mine, we are proud to collaborate on this innovative exhibition," said Zeina Arida, director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, and Catherine Grenier, director of concept of the future Art Mill Museum. "The work of our two museums is very much aligned, in its own way, with the ambitious attempt of Your ghosts are mine to reorganize the categories we use to understand the 21st century, whether the lines being crossed are geopolitical borders, the boundaries between fiction and documentary or the outmoded distinction between film and video. We believe that museums have a special role to play in fully integrating cinema at large into the history of art." she added.

"Cinema is not only the mirror of the political changes: it participates in them, anticipates them, accompanies them, supports them, transforms them in a daring aesthetical approach," said Matthieu Orlean. "These films don’t belong to the mass media and cultural industry. They follow their own paths, never forgetting that they are and will be perceived as pieces of history." "The exhibition architecture created by Cookies engages with each of the curatorial themes, offering visitors a diverse and immersive experience," said Federico Martelli and Clement Perisse. "For each room in the exhibition, Cookies designed unique sculptural structures that respond to the technical needs of displaying cinema in an exhibition context. This approach ensures that the exhibition engages with the architecture of the palazzo, facilitating moments of immersion where spectators can fully engage with the carefully curated selection of films from the Doha Film Institute catalog."

On view through 24 November, the exhibition is one of several Qatar Museums initiatives coinciding with the Venice Biennale. Mathaf is lending several works from major Arab modern artists to be exhibited in Foreigners Everywhere, the main exhibition of the 60th International Art Exhibition curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Qatar Museums is also a supporter of the Nigeria Pavilion at the Biennale and the founding sponsor of the Art for Tomorrow conference, which takes place in Venice from Jun. 5 to 7, 2024. Your ghosts are mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices will remain on view during the Venice International Film Festival, opening 28 August.

Source: QNA