How to maneuver : shapeshifting texts and other publishing tactics

Curated by Kayfa ta, Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi, 10.12–2019.–16.2.2020 Publishing is the act of making public. It is not restricted to specific producers, languages of production, sanctified routes of distribution, and privileged readers. This is not publishing as we have come to know it. The Arab World is home to a growing number of book fairs and art book fairs. These two types of public platforms run parallel to each other, representing different, if not opposing, economies of cultural capital, systems of representation of subjects and subjectivities, as well as strategies for encountering and conversing with an audience. This exhibition emerged out of a need to question the boundaries separating Publishing from independent publishing, or mainstream from alternative cultural production. The space that separates these different regimes of authorship, publishing and readership, is also the space where these differences can be maneuvered - where limits are creatively questioned and hardened practices lured to speak in different tongues. This is the space that this exhibition inhabits. How to maneuver follows the footsteps of a selection of artistic and publishing practices, and the spaces they seek to create. The works presented share a rich variety of historical and contemporary reflections on the languages and formats marginalized in the dominant publishing industry – the snubbed genres, the outlawed subjects, the troubling subjectivities, the excessive, the minimal, the unprofitable, and the unfathomable. Through the exhibition, its artworks, publications and structural interventions, we get a glimpse of some of the cultural spaces and agencies reclaimed through independent artistic and publishing practices. The research and series of exhibitions that this publication grew out of, is part of an ongoing project exploring the significant work of individuals, collectives and institutions in the field of alternative art and publishing practices, past and present. Contributors: Ahmad Makia, Ali Eyal, Ali Hussein Al-Adawy, Ali Yass, Andrew Murphie, Bady Dalloul, Barakunan, Bernhard Cella, Elaine W. HO., Faisal Al Hassan, Farah Khelil & antoine lefebvre editions, Fehras Publishing Practices, Giulia Crispiani & Federico Antonini, Hala Bizri & Jana Traboulsi, Haytham el-Wardany, Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Hussein Nassereddine, Jabbour Douaihy, Jaffat El Aqlam, Khalid Albudoor & Nujoom Alghanem with Rand Abdul Jabbar & Uns Kattan & Hammad Nasar, Moad Musbahi, Noopur Desai, Raafat Majzoub, Yazan Ashqar. Edited by Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis

English