Ibrahim Quraishi

Ibrahim Quraishi (born 1970) is a conceptual artist, writer, choreographer and artistic director of "Compagnie Faim de Siecle"(NY/Paris). Ibrahim's work is based on the transformation of space, an immersive narrative and a pro-active performative dialogue through digital and human interface. Graduate of Columbia University (New York, 1995) from the department of Middle East Languages and Literature, over the last ten years Ibrahim has created numerous site-specific performances and installations in festivals and galleries throughout Europe, Asia and the United States.Ibrahim's pieces are grounded in the interaction of visual arts forms, digital media and live performances that explore various cultural and social conflicts. His works consciously examine the realities and dynamics of migration, dispossession and cohabitation within the highly rigid sociopolitical spheres of imagined communities.

Some of the most recent works have been specially commissioned by The Japan Foundation (Tokyo), Festival Avril. DOT (Paris), G. A. S. Gallery (NY), MESS Festival, (Sarajevo), Le Batofar (Paris), Saison France/Quebec (Quebec City), Muffathalle (Munich), Downtown Arts Festival (NY), Biennial Interferences (Belfort-Montbilliard), Acco Festival (Acco-Israel), Bronx Museum of Arts (Bronx, NY), Gallery Mains d'Oeuvres (St. Ouen), Nouveau Casino (Paris), Le Lieu Unique (Nantes), LA Edge Festival (Los Angeles), The Kitchen (NY), Festival Ounze (Paris), Dastaan (Lahore) and The 13th International Schillertage Festival (Mannheim).

Winner and recipient of such prestigious grants as The ITI Grant for his work in Samara, Russia in 1996 for Zemlinsky's "Der Zwerg" and Busoni's "Arlecchino". The Rockefeller MAP Fund in 2000 for the immense Landscapes Project, The Goethe Institute Grant 2000 in New York, Arts International Fund for U.S. Artist in 2000 for the performance installation tsunami inspired by Heiner Müller's "Abandoned Shores" and "Matériau Médée". Chosen as one of the finalists for The Rockefeller Fellowship in 2003 and in 2004, Ibrahim was given the Islamic World Arts Initiative (IWAI) commission by Arts International, The Rockefeller MAP Fund 2004 and the National Endowment for the Arts Award for his extremely controversial and highly popular " 5 STREAMS" cross media piece, commissioned by Asia Society of New York in association with MASS MoCA (Massachusetts) for 2006. In France Ibrahim site specific works and video films such as "Anamorphose", "White Box", "Foret de Memoire", "Rivages a l'abandon" and "PAYsages" have been supported by the Maire de Paris, DRAC ile de France, THECIF ile de France, AFAA, and DICREAM - CNC (Centre National de la Cinématographie ) and in 2004 Ibrahim was an official resident of the CitéInternationale des Arts in Paris.

Ibrahim Qurashi has collaborated with such internationally diverse artists as Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky, Norscq, Aziz, Shahzia Sikander, Vijay Iyer, Mike C. Ladd, Pamela Z, Smaadar Yaron, Dominique Starck, Gabriel Smeets, Komar & Melamid, Valery Gergiev, Naeem Mohaiemen, Hiam Abbass, Daniel Mageaon a.k.a. Hanzel & Gretzel, DJ Wet, Joel Ryan, Gardner Post (EBM), Howard Goldkrand, Emanuel Günther aka Mooner, Serdar Yalsin, Marc Perroud a.k.a. t zèid, Zachary Shuman, Masayasu Nakanishi, Palina Jonsdottir, Stefanie Wilhelm, Mirelle Safa, Walid Breidi, Rabeah Mokos, Generation Aldi, Prema Murthy, Servovalve, Karen Lawler, Saint Alia, Fawzia Afzal-Khan, So, Babi Badalov, Nikola Lelievere, Rokefella (Quick Step), Supha, Rosa Sanchez & Alain Baumann (Konic Thtr), Arthur Aviles, Eng Kian Ooi, Rajika Puri, Sandhya Sanjana, Parul Shah, Wanda Ortiz, Subarna Kumar Thapa, Bill Shannon a.k.a.Crutch, The Bronx Shakers, Imani Uzuri, Naseem Abbass, Veronique Ruggia-Saura, Akim Budda Funk, Julie Tolentino,Tjet Clark, Samina Ahmed, Black Stifichi, Philippe Hersant, Annuradtha Baral, Prashant Bhargava, Sebastien Derenoncourt, Aron Deyo, Guillermo Brown, Liberty Ellman, Okkyung Lee, Xavier Hool, Robert Pyzocha, Awena Cozannet, Kayoko Tada, Noera Shem-Shaul Berger, Stephen Arnold, Andrea Davidson, Suraiya Bagdadi, Evelina Domnitsch, Dimitry Gelfand, Anup Baral and Christophe Labas-Lafite

Ibrahim further presented "Censored Images" a semi staging of a mono opera he wrote with the composer Vijay Iyer - as part of an evening called "Transmetropolitan", curated by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky for The Lincoln Center Festival in New York(NY). Ibrahim is also the co-creator of "Disappeared: A Patriot Story", a digital installation project with the Bengali-American activist Naeem Mohaiemen about the disappearances of Muslim Americans after 9/11/01. Ibrahim further gave a series of lectures on the notion/danger of the "Authentic" (as a socio-cultural concept and reality) as part of the Open Society Institute Intercultural Dialogue Seminar in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) with artists, practitioners and intellectuals from Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia and Tajikistan and then finished a commission by The Japan Foundation in Tokyo, Kyoto and New Delhi (November 2004 - January 2005) with four other directors from South Asia in exploring the role of communal fragmentation, contemporary Islam and a space for secularism in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka in the midst of civil and sectarian violence. The project is loosely is based on the emperor Babur's (1483-1583) personal memories called Baburnama (the first autobiography in Islamic literature) under the title "Memories of a Legend". Most recently Ibrahim just finished the process of creating a three month "educational" model entitled "The Political Body" for Das Arts, The Dutch postgraduate institute of performance research in Amsterdam, with dramaturge Gabriel Smeets, inviting such artists as Shirin Neshat, Tanya Reinhart, Pamela Z, Raimund Hoghe, Rimini Protokol and Jan Fabre to name a few and an 24 hour immersive process with scientist/visual artists Dmitry Gelfand and Evelina Domnitsch and 15 other choreographers as part of Dance Unlimited's mini-conference 06 in Amsterdam. Currently, as part of his artistic residency in Vienna at the Schauspielhaus Wien, Quraishi is presenting "SARAY: Mozart alla Turca", a new interpretation based on W.A. Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, a commission by the WIENER MOZARTJAHR 2006, celebrating his 250th death anniversary with Toneelhuis - Antwerpen and Les Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg. With composer Vijay Iyer and poet Mike C. Ladd, Ibrahim Quraishi is co-creating a darkly lyrical new oratorio STILL LIFE WITH COMMENTATOR for Brooklyn Academy of Music: BAM Next Wave Festival N.Y. (December 2006)

He recently contributed a chapter to "Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture" (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky.

Works

Performances

Nature Paradise

2004"NATURE/paradise" is a multimedia performance installation part of an exploration into the dissociative psychological warfare, addressing the mythological journey’s of women in contemporary Islam. The paradoxical conflict between "NATURE/paradise" has come to symbolize the conflictual and often dangerous human divisions that represent much of the Islamic world today. Pakistan, being an official Muslim state enters the narrow alleyways of many conflictual necessities, realities and daily negotiations.

The idealization of nature and the dream of an eventual paradise are intensely manifested in the subconscious. Given that the history of Pakistan is deeply contested, in "NATURE/paradise" we begin to enter a performative space symbolized by a reactive performance.

Combining a series of contemporary poetical texts from female Pakistani writers, the use of Katak (traditional classical dance) with Kawali (traditional sufi devotion) and a contemporary performance dynamic attempts to codify physio-emotive patterns / manifestations of the entrapment - prison of temporal bodies through performed and visual narratives.

Landscapes

"Landscapes" is an invitation to a mythical voyage inside the “occupied territories.” In a real-time dialogue between interactive digital media and live performance, it examines psychological warfarečshock, loss of memory, and the fragmentation of identity. Loosely based on Friedrich von Schiller’s "William Tell" and other writers who deal with occupation; sonic and visual metaphors capture physio-emotive (or somatic) manifestations of entrapment in addressing collective violence and its impact on the individual and their imagined communities.

Live and virtual performance, soundscapes, video art and sculptures made of organic material, combine to create 17 immersive microcosms of “idealized,” environments, through which the audience travels.

"Landscapes" is intended for a non-traditional space and a public open to an interactive experience. The project is modular and can be adapted to space and budget constraints, and certain parts can be performed separately.

RING

2002"RING" is a full-scale multi-media performance within the highly “coded” universe of hip-hop. As a part of the metaphoric battle inside the RING, four powerful mediums (dance, interactive video sound and web art), collied and interact. as the spectators begins to create octagonal sound-scapes by merely moving through the physical space and simultaneously causing a chain reaction in activating the visual captors that are randomly attached onto the breakers as they physically react to the sonic-sculptures.

The dialogue between the virtual “paint” brush and the virtual “boxer” are translucent in offering an effervescent hip-hop universe.

COMA

"COMA" koma n. m: Immobility, silence, memory bank, fractured brain waves, microwave ovens, frying pans, suspension of tactile sensations, negation of REM and all patterns associated with the decomposition of a neutralized state.

Live sound-scapes, visual demarcations, assist to navigate a voyage as the decaying process of the body excelerates within an immobility that so defies any intellectual, physical, psychological space in the immediate notion of time within the performative space. "Coma" is a state of a virtualized space. It is symbolic of the psychological limitations of the body in trying to comprehend its own immobility.

November 2001Mains d’Oeuvres, St. Ouenfor"SPOOKY NIGHT", France

RIVAGE A L’ABANDON

Created on September 11, 1999, in the meat packing district between 13th and West Streets, "Abandoned Shores", is specifically designed for the re-configuration of textual forms other than the classical theatrical narratives. Using voice, movement, sound, images both live and inside a sonic reality through the physical manifestation (represented by male artists) within multiple layers of vocal cacophony represented by a female Kawali singer, drum & bass, vocal narrations in Urdu, Arabic, French, German & Spanish by performers; "Abandoned Shores" is the ultimate interdisciplinary, multi-cultural, multi-media performance/installation based on a non-linear inter-relations, inter-actions and interspections of a totally emmersive, macabre reality.

2002 Festival Reservat Europa, Muffathalle, Munich2001International MESS Festival Sarajevo Bosnia.La Caserne Dahlousie during“La saison de la France“ in QuÄbec, Canada2000Le lieu Unique, Nantes, FranceFestival Piratages, Batofar, Paris France. Festival 11, Paris France. 1999Festival International des Arts de la Rue, Chētillon LA Edge Festival Downtown Arts Festival. New YorkCreated with the help of the cultural service of the French Embassy in New York, the Goethe Institute & Downtown Arts Festival, New York.

HATTERED BOXES

[Jason] has killed his sons and [Medea] is forced to bear the responsibility for those crimes. Based on the Greek Legend, Jason’s first colonization and oppression are not presented in the voice of the male victor but from our multiple Medeas who are essentially abandoning paternalistic power structures while moving beyond the legend to reclaim their individual dualities in this time based installation. "Shattered Boxes" uses live performers and digital technology to create four interactive installations each reflecting a different aspect of Medea’s reality in Flow, Rupture, Fragmentation & Memory. The performances is enhanced by live video, slides and beam projections.

December 2000InterfÄrences, 2nd Biennale du Festival International d’Art MultimÄdia Urbain, Belfort France.September 2000The Kitchen, French Season in New York, Downtown Arts Festival, New York USA.

Installations

Anamorphoses

Ibrahim Quraishi / Norscq / Marc Perroud aka t-zÅd / Veronique Ruggia-Saura

"ANAMORPHOSE" is about a generative dialogue, sampling of fragmented relationships between broken dramaturges and the process of cultural repetition. Six mini screens examine Six metaphorical spaces, Six visual rhythms, layered, slicing and dicing; transposition with cognitive memory. Six streams of consciousness as the Six screens present the illusion of exclusivity as part of the fractured culturalsoftware. Abstraction of the corps (BODY) - Alien-nation of space, hyper-text and the ever present role of digital “noises” in their regurgitation, mutation and regeneration process.

2004 Gen.R.8 Group exhibition - G.A.S. (Gigantic Art Space) Gallery - New York 2003 Nouveau Casino - Paris2003 Schillertage, Mannheim

VIOLIN ISLAMIC

2002 - research study - 2007 construction "Islamic Violin" is a presentation in the absurdity of a coded dialogue between a perfectly white violin and contemporary Islam. Based on the philosophic notions of explosive cords (literally and metaphorically) and the state of religious ferver that seems so intertwined between the two.

"Islamic Violin" explores the pro-active nature of literal explosions with all their positive and negative implications as part of the visual presentation of Attentat Violon 1 of Vèronique Ruggia and Walid Breidi’s atricle on strings and Islamic mystism.

The body of the violin is totally destroyed, only to be reconstituted nonstop. Like a loop it perpetually becomes a symbol of its own weakness and stands in the face of little human resistance and the continual integrism bombarded from all sides.

February 2002Mains d’Oeuvres, Saint Ouenduring “Les Cordes de St. Ouen” with the help of Rosenberg Museum, Bratislava, Slovaquia.

GEOMETRIC VARIATIONS

In "Geometric Variations" a performance/installation by Compagnie Faim de Siècle. It is an attempt to combine the methmophesis of the physical within the visual.

As the geometrie of Butoh is cutting its own weight, the silence of another body is the symbolic representation of "Geometric Variations' through freeze frames.

May 2001Festival de l’OHin Chinagora area (Alfortville) France. March 2001Kenzo night in Mains d’Oeuvres, Saint-Ouen France

WHITE BOX

2000 Live video and sound mix by Zachary Shuman transformed the gymnaseum into a massive helium balloon like space with DJ Wet mixing in the Chill-out room as videos of Prema Murthy’s The Bindi Girl flicked across various spaces.

The basement enclosed with glaring stark photographic installations of Ron Kiley’s decaying urban bodies, as Veronique Ruggia performed excerpts from Rivage a l’ abandon. Walid Bredi mixing to the 3D vapor installations of Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gefland created an eerie somber timewarp in a cold blackened chamber where extremely symbolic images of masks and old photo stills popped up and suddenly evaporated into thin air.

"White Box" was the showcase of different events and happenings that Faim de Siècle’s offered throughout the night.

As part of Faim de Siècle’s initial activities in Mains d’Oeuvres, Saint Ouen France, "White Box" offered multiple installations and events for the overture and opening evening called Fin de Chantier.

Audiovisual/Multimedia Residences:

February and April 2003: CICV Pierre Schaeffer (Montbeliard-Belfort)Four week residency for film/video montage for Ibrahim Quraishi and Marc Perroud for the creations of the visual installation called Anamorphose at the CICV.

February 2002: Le Lieu Mains d’╬uvres (St Ouen) Creation of Attentat 1 by Veronique Ruggia Saura for Les Cordes de St. Ouen in collaboration with the Rosenberg Museum of Bratislava, Slovaquie.

March 2001 - 2004: Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance (Bronx - New York)Ongoing project in creating the first media-lab at Hunts Point Bronx with The Sustainable South Bronx, Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre Company and The Point.

December 2000- September 2002: Le Lieu Mains d’╬uvres (St Ouen) Presentation of many workshops, long-term community based projects and the realization of community sensitization, using performance, installations, multi-media. Walid Bredi of Compagnie Faim de Siècle created the sound studio for Mains D’Žuvres, and other members of Compagnie Faim de SiÅcle created the video and other technological spaces and workshop facilities as part of the numerous debut presentations there.

December 2000: Centre ChorÄographique de Franche-ComtÄ (Belfort)Residency for the preparation of MatÄriau-MÄdÄe for 2Åme Festival International d’Arts MultimÄdia Urbains de Belfort.

August 2000: Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance (New York) Dance and Performance residency for the creation of Shattered Boxes and its presentation at The Kitchen (New York).

July 2000: CICV Pierre Schaeffer (Montbeliard-Belfort)Residencies for audio-visual creations of Prema Murphy (video), Karen M. Lawler (film), John Long (video) and Walid Breidi (sound installation) of Compagnie Faim de SiÅcle for the premiere of MatÄriau-MÄdÄe and Shattered Boxes presented in New York and at the 2Åme Festival International d’Arts MultimÄdia Urbains de Belfort.

External links

* [http://www.ibrahimquraishi.org Ibrahim Quraishi Official Website]
* [http://www.faimdesiecle.org Compagnie Faim de Siècle]
* [http://still-life.intoxarts.org Still Life with Commentator]
* [http://saray.intoxarts.org Saray // alla turca]
* [http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/5streams/ Asia Society]
* [http://bam.org/events/07STIL/07STIL.aspx Brooklyn Academy of Music]