Movements and Discourses

Service Description

This course aims to address the major historical, conceptual, theoretical and aesthetic issues that inform the region’s modern and contemporary art paradigm. Arranged largely in chronological order, it will explore the art of the MENA region, with particular attention to Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Egypt, by tracing the underpinning discourses that have shaped artistic practices and transformations in the region since the 1930s. The course will examine the recent developments in art practice in the MENA and its diaspora and their wider context, analysing the impact of globalisation and other cultural and social links. Reflecting on recent exhibitions and curatorial projects, it aims to engage with new paradigms in contemporary art of the region, working through the issues of knowledge production and transfer, global versus regional perspectives and local identities. These concepts will be examined by means of pictorial analysis and close interrogation of the works of key artists (working with different media from painting and sculpture to photography, video, performance, installation and participatory projects).