Farah Abdessamad

New York

Tunisian-French olive pulp. reader/writer/critic. novel & NF in progress. Do you want to represent me? aspiring farmer 🌾

Articles

La biennale de Gaza a organisé sa première exposition à Londres

2 weeks ago | lequotidiendelart.com | Farah Abdessamad

Il n’y a jamais eu de pavillon palestinien à la biennale de Venise (Israël en dispose dans les Giardini depuis 1952). L’Italie ne reconnaît pas l’État de Palestine. Les propositions précédentes pour la création d’un pavillon palestinien, notamment celle de Francesco Bonami, directeur artistique de la 50e édition en 2002, ne se sont pas concrétisées.
Yemen stories by Yemeni writers

1 month ago | newarab.com | Farah Abdessamad

With an ongoing conflict, economic insecurity, widespread malnutrition, and a fragile healthcare system, Yemenis have been facing a multitude of crises for over a decade. But rarely do we ever hear about their plight from their voice. However, with the recently published The Book of Sana’a, readers can finally get an insight into the myriad ways that war and oppressive regimes have touched the lives of ordinary Yemenis.
Exhibition Review: Fa Razavi’s “Opera Rose” at Palo Gallery

2 months ago | observer.com | Farah Abdessamad

Fa Razavi, Opera Rose, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and galleryLondon-based Iranian artist Fa Razavi paints astonishing sculptural bodies and a desire to interrogate the gaze and limitations we impose on them. “Opera Rose,” now on at Palo Gallery and curated by Kollectiv Collective, includes a succession of narrative images contained behind a chromatic veil of haunting hues.
In Two Shows, Myriam Yousif’s Clay Sculptures Evoke Mesopotamian Culture and the Divine Feminine

Dec 9, 2024 | observer.com | Farah Abdessamad

In Two Shows, Myriam Yousif’s Clay Sculptures Evoke Mesopotamian Culture and the Divine Feminine Diverse influences and creative hybridity permeate the artist's shows, including two new solo exhibitions: “Tremble Like Reeds” at Rebecca Camacho Presents and “Riverbend” at ICA SF.
The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum"

Nov 26, 2024 | thenation.com | Farah Abdessamad

Books & the Arts / December 2, 2024 Elsewhere Museums Can the ethnographic museum be reinvented? The Long History of the “Elsewhere Museum” Can the ethnographic museum be reinvented? Ad Policy Benin Bronzes at the British Museum. (Dan Kitwood / Getty images) This article appears in the December 2024 issue. In 1931, Paris hosted a spectacular event called the International Colonial Exhibition.
Refaat Alareer legacy honoured in posthumous book If I Must Die

Nov 13, 2024 | newarab.com | Farah Abdessamad

"Writing is a testimony," I told them, "a memory that outlives any human experience, and an obligation to communicate with ourselves and the world. We lived for a reason, to tell the tales of loss, of survival, and of hope": Refaat Alareer remembers saying this to his friend shortly after the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead which killed more than one thousand Gazans in 2008-2009, most of whom were civilians.
Salt Journals: Tunisian women describe their country’s legacy of political imprisonment

Oct 25, 2024 | middleeasteye.net | Farah Abdessamad |Leila Sansour

In more than a dozen short stories included in Salt Journals, a diverse group of Tunisian women chronicle their experience of political imprisonment under the presidencies of Habib Bourguiba and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Together, they overcome silence, question the legacy of political oppression in the country and apply a gendered lens to violations that continue to shake Tunisian aspirations for freedom and dignity.
À la recherche du programme de Kamala Harris pour l’art et la culture - Le Quotidien de l'Art

Oct 24, 2024 | lequotidiendelart.com | Farah Abdessamad

Politique culturelle Début octobre, des artistes ont offert plus de 160 œuvres, dont 54 ont été mis aux enchères sur Artsy, levant plus de 1,5 million de dollars au profit de la campagne de Kamala Harris et des démocrates dans le cadre d'une récente initiative, « Artists for Kamala ». Ceci n’est pas surprenant puisque la plupart des artistes contemporains de premier plan – de Simone Leigh à Judy Chicago et Jeff Koons – soutiennent le ticket Harris-Walz pour l'élection présidentielle...
The Glossy, Nostalgic Drift of Arabfuturism

Sep 11, 2024 | artreview.com | Farah Abdessamad

What happens when the seductive aesthetics of futurism overtake the movement’s more radical ambitions? In the exhibition ARABOFUTURS, the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) surveys Arabfuturism – understood as an attempt by Arab artists to imagine the future and belonging against Orientalist narratives through sci-fi themes. From the outset, the framing and curation of ARABOFUTURS stimulates historical and contemporary parallels to its progenitor Afrofuturism.
When the Strange Is Familiar and the Familiar Strange: Surrealism Turns 100

Sep 11, 2024 | observer.com | Farah Abdessamad

When the Strange Is Familiar and the Familiar Strange: Surrealism Turns 100 The movement’s core message was and is one of championing radical freedom of thought and modern experiments in literature and visual arts. Sisters by Ewa Juszkiewicz. Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images“This summer the roses are blue; the wood is of glass,” André Breton wrote in 1924.