ICD Brookfield Place is pleased to announce the opening of Do Arabs Dream of Electric Sheep?. This group exhibition explores and celebrates new ways to see and understand Arab-speaking geographies through imagination – beyond dominant, contemporary historical narratives. Building on Arab and regional traditions that center on meta physicality, futurism, and world making, the exhibition showcases how some Arab artists have been approaching their regional realities.
Do Arabs Dream of Electric Sheep? is curated by Palestinian independent researcher, curator and culture producer Adam Haj Yahya. Adam comments, “This exhibition challenges the future and the concept of a future itself, doing so with biting wit and cynical charm. It showcases contemporary emerging and established artists who insist on the necessity of finding different ways of being in the complex Arab realities we live in. Our region has faced countless losses and tragedies that continue to narrow down the horizon of emancipatory possibilities, but this is precisely where our imagination of a different order is and shall be activated. These artists, through their varied practices, offer us prototypes and illustrations of what could be, and how we could be, differently and without bounds, both in loss and in joy.”
Featuring works by Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Meriem Bennani, Haitham Haddad, Studio Akakir (Walid Bouchouchi), and Tracy Chahwan, the exhibition steers away from monolithic or binary views of what an Arab future might look like by centering the works of young, humorous, and critical artists and creatives. From multimedia installations to films, texts, and prints, the exhibition space forms a domain where imagination and speculation are un-bound to the current time and space. The four-week long exhibition will be free and open to visitors starting February 23rd.
For the opening of the exhibition, ICD Brookfield Place is excited to collaborate with Radio AlHara, a community radio station transmitting out of Palestine that has been amplifying networks across borders with the aim of creating new forms of knowledge transmission. Radio Al Hara will host an experimental, festive, and unprecedented line-up of artists representative of its blended community of listeners and producers ranging from Palestine, Armenia, the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Lebanon, to Mexico and Pakistan; with Manuka Honey, Hassan Hujairi, Damos Room, Yara Asmar, Hani J, Lucia Kagramanyan, Julmud, and Aia Atoui.
Head of the Arts Program at ICD Brookfield Place, Malak Abu-Qaoud, comments “Do Arabs Dream of Electric Sheep? is the first exhibition of its kind at ICD Brookfield Place and a true testament to our commitment to support regional emerging and established talent. We are extremely proud to be working alongside Adam HajYahia, a young, talented curator, and six incredible artists from the region. We could not imagine a better way to further amplify and celebrate this incredible show than partnering with the communal, regional radio station – Radio AlHara.”
Press release from ICD Brookfield Place.
