Oraib Toukan

Oraib Toukan works across media in photography, video, and installation, often bringing public interventions into her practice. Thread throughout her work is a form of play and underlying irony in the situations she creates for herself and the viewer.  Oraib is a recipient of fellowships from the Jacob Javits MFA award, Artist Alliance New York, ART OMI, Pro Helvetia, among other production grants by MAWRED, AFAC and Meeting Points.

She has worked with both Triangle Arts Trust and the Fondazione MichelAngelo Pistoletto in pushing ‘studio practice’ into social spaces and has co-initiated the Shatana International Arts workshop in Jordan.

Oraib will be international resident artist at The Delfina Foundation until December 2009.

Lamia Joreige

Lamia Joreige (Beirut, Lebanon) is a painter, a photographer and a video artist whose work combines archival documents with fictitious elements in order to delve into the possibilities of representation of the Lebanese wars and their aftermaths. Lamia has shown her work internationally, including the 52nd Venice Biennale (Lebanese Pavillion), Archive Fever (an exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor, for ICP New-York) and Modern Art Oxford (Out of Beirut, 2005). 

Lamia will be international resident artist at The Delfina Foundation until December 2009.

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali's multi-discipline approach to art-making spans across video, installation, painting and drawing and explores how meaning is constructed and understood. Muhammad's outlook on Semiotics has an important anthropological dimension, with the study of evolution and the communication of cultural phenomenon taking up a pivotal role in his practice. 

Muhammad Ali (b. 1982, Syria) graduated with a BA in Painting from the Fine Art Faculty of the University of Damascus. He has recently exhibited his work during Scope (Basel and New-York, 2008), Darat Al Funun (Jordan, 2005), Al Riwaq Gallery (Bahrain, 2004) and All Art Now (Syria, 2009).
Muhammad's residency is organised in collaboration with All Art Now, and supported by the British Council Syria.  

Nathaniel Rackowe

Designed to interact with the environment in which they are situated, Nathaniel Rackowe’s large scale architectural structures are built using light, kinetic elements and common industrial materials.

Drawing on Minimalism’s attention to the relationship between viewer, object, and space, and fusing the structural codes and material outcomes of Modernism, Nathaniel’s works transports the viewer from passive observer to participant, exposing the otherwise unseen dimensions of visual and temporal spaces. 

Nathaniel Rackowe (b. 1975), graduated from the Slade with a M.F.A in sculpture. Recent exhibitions include Galerie Almine Rech (Paris), the Economist Plaza (Contemporary Art Society, London), the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Chisenhale Gallery (London), MoCA (Miami), Duve (Berlin). Nathaniel will be is an international resident in Beirut until October 2009, in collaboration with Zico House.

Rana Begum

Rana Begum transforms the overpowering associations of urban debasement into poetic entities, by building architectural superstructures with neatly ordered geometrics and colliding colour codes. 

Using repetition and symmetry, centred on audacious color combinations, pure forms and lines, Rana’s work fuses the codes of urban visual stimuli, such as road signs, advertising, hazard markings, with Modernist aesthetics. 

Rana Begum (b. 1977) graduated from the Slade with a MA in Fine Art. She has exhibited her work internationally including Bishoff/Weiss (London), Riflemaker (London), Martin Creed's Work n. 951 (London), Jerwood Space (London) & The Third Line (Dubai). Rana is a current international resident in Beirut, Lebanon, until October 2009, in collaboration with Zico House.

Nisrine Boukhari

Nisrine Boukhari is a mixed media and installation artist based in Damascus, Syria. In her work, which inherited the legacy of Situationism, she uses concepts of psychogeography (the study of the laws and specifics effects of the geographical environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals) to explore our relationship to inner and domestic spaces. Principles of 'colour and light therapy' often underline the interactive nature of her installations. 

With a characteristic economy of means (her work often builds on the recurrence of mundane objects, such as ropes, post-it notes or sheets of copier paper), Nisrine creates sensorial and participatory installations which engage the body as well as the mind. 

Nisrine Boukhari (b. 1980) studied Sculpture at the University in Damascus. She has recently exhibited her work at AllArtNow (Magnetism, Here I Stand). In 2008, she participated in the Shatana workshop, Jordan (Triangle).

A residency in collaboration with AllArtNow and supported by the British Council, Syria.

Ramallah Underground

The unique sound of Ramallah Underground typically fuses elements of Arabic electronic music, hip-hop, trip hop and down-tempo. The resulting soundscapes are an expression of defiance and hope, a challenging voice against oppression. 

The collective, which was founded by artists Boikutt, Stormtrap and Aswatt, was born out of the immediacy of musical experimentation and the need to give voice to a generation of young people who, facing the currently turbulent and uncertain landscape of the region, have an active role in redefining Palestine’s future cultural, social and political setup. 

Recent developments and areas of exploration within the collective’s practice include sound installations, and collaborations with visual artists. 

Ramallah Underground will be performing at The Bluecoat, Liverpool, on 17 July 2009. More information

Mario Cuesta

Mario Cuesta is a Madrid-based film-maker, who has written and directed several short films, documentaries and sitcoms including the  internet serial ‘Coinman y la Ligua de Superheroes Fundamentale’.

Mario will be international resident artist in Damascus, Syria, between March and May 2009, in collaboration with Mustafa Ali Art Foundation. 

Tobias Collier

Tobias Collier’s work is an attempt to make sense of the infinite and the meta-galactic, using everyday experiences and trivial materials. Through quotidian metaphors, such as oribital rice-crispies, or cups of coffee-cosmology, and by juxtaposing the domestic with the inter-stellar, Tobias demonstrates how scale, speed and time are relative. 

Tobias was resident artist in Damascus, Syria, between March and May 2009, in collaboration with the Mustafa Ali Art Foundation. Tobias has shown his work internationally, including Centre Pompidou (Paris), and the Royal Academy (London). He currently lives and works in London. 

Manal Aldowayan

“Although the history of the Arab woman inspires me, it is the modern Arab woman that motivates and gives me courage. I hope that women with education and financial independence will become fully and actively involved in shaping the decisions that affect their future and the futures of their daughters…..”.

Manal Aldowayan is a photographer currently living and working in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Manal understands her photographic practice as a tool to raise awareness around gender issues in Saudi Arabia.  For I Am (2005-2007), she erected temporary photographic studios in the home of her subjects, and produced a series of black and white portraits of veiled and heavily made-up Saudi women, posing next to material attributes conventionally associated with male professions. In each portrait, a piece of traditional jewelry is placed in an obstructive and unnatural way, questioning the weight of cultural heritage in defining the role of women in Saudi Arabian society.

Amina Menia

Amina Menia is a mixed-media artist currently living and working in Algiers, Algeria. Her work actively questions our relation to architectural and historical spaces, and challenges conventional notions around the exhibition space. Working across installation, sculpture and video, and drawing upon relational aesthetics, her art encourages exchange, interaction and attempts to probe daily changes through ‘new urban practices’.

A large scale scaffolding structure placed against the facade of a 429 year old edifice in Algier’s Casbah, Extra Muros (2008) is an intriguing site specific installation: an invitation to reevaluate our understanding of heritage, and de-construct our conception of beauty.

Amina has showed her work nationally and internationally, including bastion 23 (Algiers), Galerie Anne de Villepoix (Paris), Pontevedra Biennale (Spain) and Atelier Visu (Marseille). In 2008, she took part in Visiting Arts' Artist-to-artist programme, invited by Zineb Sedira.