Cancelled Without Prejudice
posted by Ismail Farouk at
THE MAK URBAN FUTURE INITIATIVE PRESENTS:
Cancelled Without Prejudice by Ismail Farouk
Part Two of Exhibition Series Locus Remix. Three Contemporary Positions
Opening Reception: Wednesday, November 5, 7 - 9 pm
Artist Walkthrough on MAK Day: Saturday, November 8, 2 pm
Exhibition Dates: November 6, 2008 - January 4, 2009
MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles
Schindler House
835 North Kings Road
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Please join us on Wednesday, November 5 for the opening of
Cancelled Without Prejudice, a survey of the work of UFI fellow Ismail Farouk, an artist and urban geographer from Johannesburg, South Africa. Through video, photography and performance, Farouk documents patterns of spatial injustice and explores a variety of interventions aimed at producing a more just urban landscape. With
Cancelled Without Prejudice, Farouk examines the contradictions of mainstream urban development in Johannesburg and Los Angeles, revealing a common narrative unfolding in both cities: the privatization of public space and the criminalization of poverty.
Cancelled Without Prejudice includes a selection of video installations that illustrate Farouk's varied approach to circumventing the mechanisms of injustice, such as a series of surveillance videos documenting police corruption and abuse of undocumented migrants. In the video "Rock Sale," Farouk challenges Johannesburg's ban on street vendors by setting up his own sidewalk enterprise and attempting to sell rocks and piles of sand - items of no monetary value. Farouk's video and photography bare witness to similar patterns of injustice in Los Angeles, particularly in Skid Row.
Cancelled Without Prejudice will be on view at the Schindler House from November 6, 2008 - January 4, 2009. The opening reception, which is free and open to the public, will be on Wednesday, November 5 at 7 p.m. Farouk will lead a walkthrough of the exhibition as part of
MAK Day, on Saturday, November 8, at 2 p.m.
The
MAK Center presents
Cancelled Without Prejudice as the second part of
Locus Remix. Three Contemporary Positions, a three-part exhibition featuring the work of Katie Grinnan, Ismail Farouk and Dorit Margreiter. In a rapidly changing world where complexity, uncertainty and instability are givens, it is increasingly important to combine precise focus with diverse points of view.
Locus Remix features three artists who work with place, meaning, and representation. In each case, the artist is drawing from cultural iconography, the poetics and the politics of space, and the sacred and profane in architecture. In three distinct ways, the act of cultural interpretation is questioned and problemitized.
Locus Remix is organized by
MAK Center Director Kimberli Meyer.
Labels: events, Exhibitions, Ismail Farouk, LA, Los Angeles, UFI, Urban Future Initiative
Creative Strategies for Spatial Injustice
posted by Ismail Farouk at
A public salon co-curated by Farmlab and the MAK Center
Friday, September 26 at noon
Farmlab, 1745 North Spring Street
This event is free and open to the public.
The MAK Center and Farmlab invite you to participate in a dialogue exploring creative strategies for dealing with spatial injustice with artist and urban geographer Ismail Farouk. Farouk is in Los Angeles as part of the MAK Urban Future Initiative (UFI), an international fellowship program dedicated to creating meaningful cross-cultural exchange about topics related to the challenges confronting cities worldwide. Farouk will present an overview of his work, which attempts to highlight the patterns of spatial inequality associated with the global desire to narrowly define space along lines of profit.
Labels: farmlab, Ismail Farouk, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Mak Center, UFI
Urban Future Initiative, Los Angeles, CA
posted by Ismail Farouk at
Greetings from Los Angeles! I am here as part of the MAK Center Urban Future Initiative (UFI), a visionary fellowship program for research of urban phenomenon hosted at the Fitzpatrick-Leland House.
I will be staying in Los Angeles for the next 2 months, realising my proposal to map patterns of spatial injustice, informed by a comparative analysis of the social, political, economic and geographic landscapes of Los Angeles and Johannesburg. The basis for my work is the common nature of exclusion experienced as a result of the dominant neo-liberal urban planning policies being implemented in cities globally.
In both Johannesburg and Los Angeles, the expanding privatised urban environment, characterised by the formation of Business Improvement Districts (BIDS), seem to support the perception of cleanliness and safety. BIDS concentrate power for the property owners only, who benefit as a result is the surge in property prices in the area. However, they also suppress the varied expression of human interaction and limit the capacity of small businesses to stay afloat. Ultimately, BIDS have no benefits for poorer residents and often result in the end of a livelihood. My proposal at the UFI, is an attempt to understand the patterns of poverty and injustice as it relates to the privatisation of public space.
Please feel free to follow my progress on the official UFI blog.
Labels: Ismail Farouk, Mak Center, Projects, UFI, Urban Future Initiative, urban research
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