Find out what the critics have been saying about ‘Plan for Feminist Greater Baghdad’.
Ala Younis, Plan for Feminist Greater Baghdad exhibition installation view, 2018. Photo Tim Bowditch. Courtesy Delfina Foundation and Art Jameel.
FRIEZE“Centred around another brutalist building, Le Corbusier’s Baghdad Gymnasium, Younis demonstrates wave after wave of grand architectural projects, their successes and failures, and the men who produced them. She also crucially allows female voices to speak, through architectural models, photographs, and documents”
— Darran Anderson, Frieze Magazine, 16 March 2018.
“Younis adds new dimensions to our understandings of the city’s multitude of characters and the waves of political changes”
— Cleo Roberts, ArtAsiaPacific, 5 March 2018.
“Their stories emerge, sometimes just in fragments, through a dense collection of documents, photos and drawings interwoven with a chronological account of the changing political backdrop and its impact on the modern city of Baghdad.”
— Pamela Buxton, RIBA Journal, 12 February 2018.
“The exhibition […] engages us to reflect on how we commemorate and represent historical moments and people, and to think about who is rendered invisible or unacknowledged by history and present culture.”
— Christine Takengny, Contemporary Art Society, 9 February 2018.
“Using archival images, statements and historical events, she maps an alternate history of often-overlooked women who shaped the architecture of the country both literally and figuratively.”
— Holly Black, Elephant, 7 February 2018.
“Together, [the] works explore issues related to the protection of monuments for posterity, and the creation of plans for Baghdad either as an expression of power or a necessity.”
— Jyoti Kalsi, Gulf News, 4 April 2018.
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommended by the Londonist, Artnet and Harpers Bazaar Arabia.
INTERVIEW
Mai Elwakil speaks to Ala about her new work and exhibition on Mada Masr.
PODCAST INTERVIEW
Listen to Ala Younis discuss the exhibition with Hind Mezaina on the Tea with Culture podcast.