Off̷ the Table – The Arab Jew
A discussion evening initiated by Hori Izhaki
We invite you to join us at Off̷ the Table at Künstler:innenhaus Büchsenhausen: On June 12, we will come together and approach the topic of Arab Jews in an open, informal dinner discussion, where everyone can contribute equally. The evening will be hosted by the artist and Büchsenhausen Fellow Hori Izhaki. Together we will explore how an Arab-Jewish episteme has been uprooted and overplanted in the Middle East (and beyond) and examine Arab-Jewish positionality in the European memory complex.
Off̷ the Table is inspired by the Greek symposium, with elements of the Arabic meal event and Jewish holiday dining rituals. A long sheet of thin and delicate paper, capable of absorbing small casual actions and solubles, is placed on the floor – our table. A constellation of three main substances is placed on it: text (the intellectual mass), food (the substance and its rituals), and people (the generators).
The food is chosen and prepared to engage with the topic, acting as both material and stimulator. The guests’ expertise on the theme of the evening and their views will vary, but the conversation will be one of equals.
REGISTRATION INFO:
Due to the format of this event, the number of “seats” is limited. Therefore, registration is required. If you would like to participate, please send an email to office[at]buchsenhausen.at.
The event takes place in the context of Hori Izhaki’s project _augmented_memory: _ARAB_in_the_ALPS_ [ImpostER], the outcome of which can be currently seen in the concluding group exhibition of the Büchsenhausen Fellowship Program for Art and Theory 2023-24 titled The Secret Life of Plants and Trees at Kunstpavillon.
Among the guests will be:
Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek studied Jewish Studies and Art History and works as a curator and museum consultant. From 1993 to 2011, she was the chief curator of the Jewish Musuem in Vienna. Heimann-Jelinek’s work focuses on the representation of Jewish art, history, and identity.
Sapir Hubermann is a Ph.D. candidate in the International Ph.D. Program (IPP), Literature and Cultural Studies, Justus Liebig University, Gießen. Her research deals with visual archival material from the Middle East and its role in media, film, and other artistic productions. Alongside her research, she works as an independent curator, cultural manager, and art mediator in a number of institutions.
Hanno Loewy is a German literary and media scholar, publicist and director of the Jewish Museum Hohenems. The museum is currently working on the exhibition Yalla Habibi! Arabisch-jüdisch? Über Identität und Mehrdeutigkeit (en: Arab-Jews? On Identity and Ambiguity), which will open in September 2024.
Avi Lubin is a contemporary art curator. He is the chief curator of Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel. Lubin is also the co-founder and co-editor of Tohu Magazine, and was the curator of Field Hospital X, Aya Ben Ron’s work in the Israel pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, 2019.
Dr. Nadeen Sabha is a Jordanian astrophysicist, working and living in Germany and Austria since 2008. She is currently doing her habilitation at the University of Innsbruck.
Nina Tabassomi is a curator and theater scholar. Having previously worked at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, the Fridericianum in Kassel, and Ludlow 38 in New York, she is now the director of TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol, a position she has held since the beginning of 2017.
The evening will be hosted by:
Hori Izhaki is a multidisciplinary artist from Tel Aviv Jaffa, who is currently based in Berlin. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries, festivals and art fairs in the Middle East and around Europe, including the Jewish Museum Berlin, Volkskundemuseum Wien and the CLB Gallery Berlin.
With her art, she arrives in temporal mechanisms, structures and arrangements she builds to fall and fail (like any utopia). Inspired by the mechanisms of sociological phenomena, their grounding in social rituals and the possibility to play with them, she investigates issues of identity in relation to memory (collective as personal), colonialism of the (female) body, its representation and trauma.
For Izhaki, nesting her works between disciplines is a choice aiding interrogation. Embracing the unresolvable question of what starts what, the media emerges from the theme and the theme is born from the media. She works with performance, installation, language, video, sculpture and temporarily emerging communities of participation in the intersection between the natural, the technological and the symbolic.
www.horiizhaki.com/
Visitor information
Künstler*innenhaus Büchsenhausen