Though they sit on different continents, the Maghreb and South Asia share several common denominators from cultural, historic, spiritual, traditional and social perspectives. In the same vein that a region’s history may be read through the work of modern artists, so too can shared influences.
In what is set to be a fascinating discussion between Diana Campbell Betancourt, the artistic director of the Samdani Art Foundation and chief curator of Dhaka Art Summit and Dr. Iftikhar Dadi, associate professor at Cornell University’s Department of History of Art and Ridha Moumni, an independent curator and research associate at the Institut de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain in Tunis – the session will seek to explore the shared influences of these two regions through the work of Abdelkader Guermaz and Aly Ben Salem, both whose work will be on show at El Marsa’s booth in the Modern Hall. From the South Asian contingent, artists such as Biren De, GR Santosh, Sayed Haider Raza and Anwar Jalal Shemza will be brought into the discussion.
The talk will be moderated by Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, an assistant curator of the international art collections at the Tate Modern, London.
* Different Regions, Shared Influences. will take place at 11.30am, Saturday March 18, Concrete, Alserkal Avenue. For the rest of the Art Dubai Modern Symposium line up,

Source: The National