107 episodes

Interviews and discussions about art and culture in the United Arab Emirates and beyond. Founded in 2015. Presented by Hind Mezaina and Wael Hattar.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @teawithculture
Email: teawithculture@gmail.com

Tea with Culture Tea with Culture

    • Society & Culture

Interviews and discussions about art and culture in the United Arab Emirates and beyond. Founded in 2015. Presented by Hind Mezaina and Wael Hattar.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @teawithculture
Email: teawithculture@gmail.com

    Interview With Nora Razian About Exhibition Trends

    Interview With Nora Razian About Exhibition Trends

    A discussion with Nora Razian (Head of Exhibitions at Art Jameel) about recent exhibition trends in museums and galleries, specifically how 'research based art' is presented and translated into a final piece of artwork. 

    The discussion includes questions about the proposition of the work and what are curators and artists demanding from an audience, works made for biennials compared to museum/gallery exhibitions, how best to present durational work like film and video and how can the layout invite and engage viewers to watch them in their entirety. We also discuss labelling, how to accommodate multi-lingual viewers, and how artists present works that challenge and contest dominant art narratives and histories.

    Links to some of the works mentioned in the discussion:
    Nepal Picture Library at the 17th Istanbul Biennial
    https://www.nepalpicturelibrary.org/update/feminist-memory-project-at-istanbul-biennial/
    https://bienal.iksv.org/en/17b-artists/feminist-memory-project-nepal-picture-library

    Lamia Joreige at the 17th Istanbul Biennial
    https://bienal.iksv.org/en/17b-artists/lamia-joreige

    Christian Marclay - The Clock 
    https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/marclay-the-clock-t14038 

    A Word to Curators - about making exhibitions accessible 
    https://thewhitepube.co.uk/blog/to-curators/  

    Watch & Chill 2.0: Streaming Senses at Sharjah Art Foundation 
    https://sharjahart.org/sharjah-art-foundation/exhibitions/watch-chill-2.0-streaming-senses

    An Ocean in Every Drop at Jameel Art Centre 
    https://jameelartscentre.org/whats-on/an-ocean-in-every-drop/


    About our guest:
    Nora Razian manages the exhibitions programme at the Jameel Arts Centre, and contributes to curatorial thinking across the board. Previous roles include heading up programmes at the Sursock Museum, Beirut, and curating public programmes at Tate, London. She has an MA in Anthropology and Cultural Politics from Goldsmiths College, London, where she also designed and taught the MA course ‘Critical Pedagogy in Contested Space’ at the Centre for Arts and Learning.

    • 41 min
    Interview With Ana Lily Amirpour

    Interview With Ana Lily Amirpour

    An interview with Ana Lily Amirpour about her latest film Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, a fantasy adventure about a girl with unusual and dangerous powers who escapes from a mental asylum and tries to make it on her own in New Orleans.

    We discuss the film, how it relates to current politics, freedom, kindness, sleep, dreams, and dance music.

    This interview was recorded via Zoom at Cinema Akil on October 1.

    • 39 min
    Catch Up Part 2 - Cinema

    Catch Up Part 2 - Cinema

    Part two of a catch up conversation between Hind Mezaina and Wael Hattar, this one is about the state of cinema in the UAE and beyond.

    Topics include:
    - Changed habits of watching films since the pandemic
    - Cinema vs streaming debate
    - UAE cinemas and the inconsistent subtitling of non-English language films, lack of efforts by the multiplexes to attract new and diverse audiences to cinemas, high end cinema experience vs affordable cinema
    - Lack of financial support for filmmakers in the UAE and new generation of new short films made by independent filmmakers in the
    - Streaming companies funding regional films and TV shows
    - Omar El Zohairy and his latest film Feathers


    Relevant links:
    https://grasshopperfilm.com/film/feathers/
    https://www.theculturist.com/home/2022/5/19/cinemas-2022-the-alternative-film-festival-at-manarat-al-saadiyat
    https://imagenationabudhabi.com/afs/
    https://www.netflix.com/ae-en/title/81312532 (Cooking with Paris)
    https://www.hbo.com/irma-vep

    Image: Still from Feathers

    • 29 min
    Catch Up Part 1 - Art

    Catch Up Part 1 - Art

    Hind Mezaina and Wael Hattar sit together after a podcast hiatus, to catch up on the state of art and culture across the UAE and beyond.

    They talk about life during (and post?) pandemic, art fairs, the accessibility of art, grassroots collectives that are co-opted by art fairs/commercial galleries, how the art scene in the UAE has not matured enough, the obsession with young artists, finding joy in art and more.


    Links to some of the things mentioned in the discussion:
    https://www.akaretler.com.tr/Artweeks
    https://www.theculturist.com/home/exhibition-wael-hattar-sold-out-at-rotanda-gallery.html
    https://tashkeel.org/exhibitions/wonder-land
    https://maraya.ae/exhibitions/view/towards-time/121
    https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/visa-and-emirates-id/dubai-cultural-visa
    https://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/admissions/graduate/mfa-art-and-media.html

    Image from Towards Time. Works by Zara Mahmood at Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah

    • 18 min
    Interview With Todd Reisz

    Interview With Todd Reisz

    Architect and writer Todd Reisz joins Hind Mezaina for a discussion about his book Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai and his exhibition Off Centre / On Stage that is accompanied by a book with the same title at Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai.

    You can find Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai on https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29960 and most other online bookshops.

    Information about Off Centre / On Stage exhibition at Jameel Arts Centre can be found on https://jameelartscentre.org/whats-on/off-centre-on-stage/. The exhibition is on until March 21, 2022.

    The book Off Centre / On Stage was designed and published by Khatt Books and available to order online on https://www.khattbooks.com/shop/off-center-on-stage/

    If you are in Dubai, you can find both books at Jameel Arts Centre and also online at https://shop.artjameel.org, plus Kinokinuya and Gulf Photo Plus.

    Todd Reisz is an architect and writer living in Amsterdam. His work examines the global practice of architecture, specifically how the architect circulates technologies and cultural narratives. In addition to the two books about Dubai, he also co-edited Building Sharjah (https://www.ribabooks.com/building-sharjah_9783035622768#), an archival investigation of Sharjah's vanishing twentieth-century landscape and includes a selection of essays and images from several contributors.

    You can find more of Todd's writings and subscribe to his newsletter on http://www.toddreisz.com and follow him on https://twitter.com/ToddReisz.

    • 1 hr 3 min
    Interview with A S Hamrah

    Interview with A S Hamrah

    Film critic A.S. Harmah joins Hind Mezaina for a conversation about his book The Earth Dies Streaming.

    A.S. Hamrah is a writer living in Brooklyn. He contributed a column on film to n+1 from 2008 to 2019, and his essays and reviews have appeared in Harper’s, Bookforum, Cineaste, and other publications. His first book, The Earth Dies Streaming: Film Writing, 2002–2018, was published by n+1 Books in 2018.

    Episode Notes:
    The first half of the discussion is about the state of film criticism, the current the debate about streaming, their impact on movie theatres, and film studios as hyper capitalist entities.

    From the 42nd minute onwards the discussion is focused on the book, including the following chapters and filmmakers:
    - Alien Land - The Grapes of Wrath
    - Jessica Biel's Hand
    - Chantal Akerman
    - Stanley Kubrick

    Other films/filmmakers/topics mentioned / discussed in this episode include:
    Outbreak, Contagion, Nomadland (Chloe Zhao), Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard), The Irishman (Martin Scorsese), Il Cinema Ritrovato and the roles of film festivals in general (especially during the pandemic),


    Links discussed in this episode:
    2021 Will Launch the Platinum Age of Piracy www.wired.com/preview/story/5fd2…56e34070c4339bc27c
    Oedipal Multiplex https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/oedipal-multiplex-1.602016



    Links related to the book:
    Book intro, Remember Me On This Computer nplusonemag.com/online-only/onlin…on-this-computer/
    n+1 Bookstore shop.nplusonemag.com/products/the-e…-by-a-s-hamrah

    Where to find A S Hamrah:
    thebaffler.com/authors/a-s-hamrah
    twitter.com/hamrahrama
    www.instagram.com/hamrahrama

    • 1 hr 43 min

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