During his residency, Mohammed Kazem is scratching shapes of the Watermill Center collections, rendering approximately 70 works on paper, and recording the sounds of the objects through touch. By way of the lights affect on the scratched images, it is possible to see an infinite movement of sound on the surface of each paper. Mohammed Kazem’s residency is supported in part through a partnership with ArteEast, a New York based non-profit supporting art practices from the Middle East and Northern African region.
Maya Chami will present on loop three audio-visual works, Of Men, Champagne and Victory Aside (2012) and Transitional digital objects (2011) as well as a new work titled Jasmine – Tree: Copy Cat, inspired by The Watermill Center cat.
Join us between 1pm – 4pm on Saturday June 14th to view these artists unique interaction with The Watermill Center resources.
About Mohammed Kazem
Mohammed Kazem (b. 1969, Dubai, UAE) is a pioneer of contemporary Emirati art who creates conceptual explorations of the environment through works on paper, video, photography and installation. Kazem’s works synthesise the continuously evolving and shifting debates about modernity and the status of citizens within and outside their nation-states. Kazem was a member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society early in his career and was acknowledged as one of the ‘Five’, (including Hassan Sharif, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Hussain Sharif and Abdullah Al Saadi) an informal group of Emirati artists who represented a vanguard of conceptual and interdisciplinary art.
Kazem studied painting at Emirates Fine Art Society, Sharjah, U.A.E. (1984 – 1987), and in 2012 earned an MFA in Sculpture from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia University. Kazem participated in formative international group exhibitions including Emirates Arts, Sittard Art Center, Netherlands (1995), 5 UAE, Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen, Germany (2002) and Numbers–Time–Signs, Dorothea van der Koelen Gallery, Mainz, Germany (2003) and Arab Express, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012). His works can be found in a number of institutional and private collections, including Arab Museum of Modern Art, (Qatar), Sharjah Art Museum (Sharjah), Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah), Sittard Art Center (Netherlands), JP Morgan Chase Collection (USA), Deutsche Bank Collection (Germany).
About Maya Chami
Born in Beirut in 1981, practitioner in graphic design and digital arts Maya Chami obtained a bachelor of science in graphic design from the Lebanese American University. In 2006, she was selected to participate in the UNESCO online masters module on art, design and technology, and in 2011 I completed her masters degree in digital arts at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She works in graphic design and digital arts on both commissioned and personal projects and has participated in several design and digital arts exhibits and events.
Maya’s portfolio of live audio-visual work includes “Transitional Digital Objects” (2011), which explores compositing an autobiography in live cinema; “Of Men, Champagne and Victory Aside” (2012), a live audio-visual presentation, merging laptop-generated visuals and live music in a playful examination into the theme of the ‘victory sign’ in the Arab world, from the 1980s to the present.
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