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Traces of War Exhibition

Effective start/end date: 26/10/2016 - 18/12/2016

"Traces of War" : A dance performance created by cast of veterans of war and young people

Candoco Dance Company and the cast members of the Charlie F Project present a newly commissioned dance piece performed by students from King’s College London, Cando2 Youth Company, local school children and war veterans.

The performances moved through spaces around Somerset House East Wing and the Inigo rooms amongst the exhibition works. Three videos capturing the making of the work are online via our Traces of War YouTube Channel

Watch the dance performances here.

 

 

Traces of War: A Pre-Exhibition Symposium

 

The Symposium introduced the artists, Jananne Al-Ani, Baptist Coelho, and Shaun Gladwell, and provided an opportunity for dialogue among scholars, artists, practitioners and interested parties around the subject of the exhibition: the presence and intersection of war with the everyday

Panel discussions were divided into three themes/ panels:

  • Traces of war: The View from Above will explore, in a discussion with the artist Jananne Al-Ani, the relationship between the technologies of photography and flight, with a particular focus on the British landscape.
  • Traces, Fragments and Landscapes of War will delve into the everyday-ness of war by making use of what Baptist Coelho refers to as the ‘fabrics’ of war – literally the materials that have lived in hostile zones.
  • Traces and Introspections in Zones of War focuses on the camera as a means to destabilize the time and space of war, and engages with the work of artist, Shaun Gladwell.

 

Work that has informed Traces of War Exhibition includes:

The Artists

Jananne Al-Ani

Jananne Al-Ani, is a London basedIraqi-born artist. Working with photography, film and video, she has an ongoing interest in the representation of contested landscapes filtered through the technologies of surveillance and aerial reconnaissance in modern warfare. Al-Ani has exhibited widely nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include In-Dis-Appearance, E-WERK, Freiburg (2015); Excavations, Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (2014); Groundwork, Beirut Art Center (2013) and Shadow Sites, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC (2012). She participated in Mom, am I Barbarian?, the 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013); Re:Emerge Towards a New Cultural Cartography, Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); all our relations, the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) and The Futureof a Promise, the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

Recipient of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011), her work is in the collections of the Tate and the Imperial War Museum, London;Centre Pompidou, Paris; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Darat al Funun, Amman.

Recent publications include Documents of Contemporary Art: Moving Image, edited by Omar Kholeif and published by the Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press; Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Imageby Laura U Marks, published by MIT Press and an interview with Cécile Bourne-Farrellfor Issue 59 of the journal Multitudes, published by Association Multitudes, Paris (all 2015). She is currently Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London.

Baptist Coelho

Baptist Coelho was the 2015-16 Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. A key focus of his practice is to uncover how conflict affects and relates to everyday life. His artistic process, fact-finding and engagement with military and civilian personnel in conflict zones leads his works in various media, including installation, video, sound, photography, performance and sculpture. These explore the notions of conflict, emotion along with thepastand present experience of across varied geographies.

In 2006, Baptist received his Masters of Arts from the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (BIAD), UK. He was awarded the 'Sovereign Asian Art Prize' (2016) by The Sovereign Art Foundation, Hong Kong; ‘Façade Video Award’ (2011) by Art Today Association, Plovdiv-Bulgaria; ‘Promising Artist Award’ (2007) by Art India & India Habitat Centre, Delhi-India and ‘Johnson Prize Fund’ (2006) by BIAD, UK

Solo Exhibitions include, Goethe-Zentrum, Hyderabad-India (2015); Project 88, Mumbai-India (2015); Ladakh Arts and Media Organization in Leh-India (2015); Pump House Gallery, London-UK (2012); Grand Palais, Bern-Switzerland (2009); Project 88, Mumbai-India (2009); Visual Arts Gallery, Delhi-India (2009) and BIAD, UK (2006).

Baptist has also participated in various artist residencies; conducted workshops, artist talks and panel discussions across Asia, Europe, UAE and South Africa. The artist lives and works in Mumbai. Visit his website www.baptistcoelho.com

Shaun Gladwell

Based in London, Gladwell's art is known primarily for its investigation into contemporary forms of human movement, spatial experience and transformation. These themes have been explored through video and photographic recordings of the artist himself, as well as other athletes involved inextreme sport. Gladwell uses activities such as skateboarding, parkour, BMX bicycle riding, graffiti, urban exploring or "buildering", as well as completely invented actions, as a means to rethink the function of objects and environments. Through his work, Gladwell proposes alternative representations of the individual and their agency to directly author or re-author their environment.

Gladwell has been exhibiting extensively throughout Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe since 2001. He has participated in many international biennales and triennales, including: the Yokohama Triennale (2005); Busan Biennale and Bienal de São Paulo (both 2006);La Biennale di Venezia (2007 & 2009); the Biennale of Sydney, Taipei Biennial and Biennale Cuvée, Linz (all 2008); Cairo Biennial (2010); the Shanghai Biennale, China (2012); The California-Pacific Triennial and SCAPE 7, Public Art Christchurch Biennial, New Zealand (both 2013); as well as la Biennale d’Arte Contemporain, Douai (2015). In 2009, Gladwell was Australia’s representative at the 53rd Venice Biennale.

 

 

The Curators

Vivienne Jabri, Professor of International Relations

Vivienne Jabri is a leading voice in developing understandings of war, violence, security, and conflict, drawing on critical, post structural, and feminist social and political theory. The author is widely published, with four monographs, two co-edited volumes, and a number of peer reviewed articles in leading International Relations journals, including European Journal of International Relations, International Theory, the Review of International Studies, International Political Sociology, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, and Security Dialogue, amongst others. Vivienne Jabri has served on the Economic and Social research Council’s professorial fellowships selection panel (2010); on the ORA Plus final assessors’ committee (2013), and on the Politics and International Studiessubject panel for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) of the UK’s Higher Education Funding Council. She serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals, International Political Sociology, the Journal of Global Security Studies, Security Dialogue, and Alternatives. Jabri’s most recent books include War and the Transformation of Global Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and The Postcolonial Subject (Routledge, 2013).

Cécile Bourne-Farrell, Independent Curator

Cécile Bourne-Farrell is an independent curator who worked for the Musée d’Art Moderne Ville de la Paris (ARC) and for both public and private institutions in Africa, Asia and Europe. One of her recent projects was for Es Baluard Museu, Palma, Mallorca and she has been appointed curator of SUD triennale, Douala, Cameroon. She served the committee of the NMAC Foundation, Spain (2002-06) and since 2006 the curatorial delegation of L’appartement 22, Rabat, Morocco. She is currently working with M. Linman (www.newpatrons.eu) for the implementation of public projects for Fondation de France in the suburb of Saint Denis, Paris, and was the Fondation’s Spanish mediator for 5 years. See www.chooseone.org.

 

King's Cultural Programming

The project is supported by the Cultural Programming at King’s, connecting the university with practitioners, producers, policy makers and participants across arts and culture, creating space where conventions are challenged and original perspectives emerge. Through its programmes and activities, Culture at King's aims to put academic research to work in the cultural sector, enhance the student experience, inspire new approaches to teaching, research and learning and increase public engagement with the work of King’s.

 

Exhibitions

 

Professor Vivienne Jabri and Curator Cécile Bourne-Farrell

Traces of War, reimagines war beyond its exceptionality, locating it in spaces where it would be least expected. At the same time, the art works reveal the sheer power of the everyday, as life itself and in its most ordinary makes its presence felt in the most dangerous locations of war. Artists from Goya to Dix variously and differently reveal the horrors of war and its imprint upon the body and the body politic, as if we might easily contrast the peace of the everyday with the destructive exceptionalism of war. However, the everyday also has a capacity to make its imprint on war, and this is shown most strongly in, for example, Mona Hatoum’s steel installation, Grater Divide (2002), where an everyday object, such as a kitchen utensil, acquires a menacing, frightening presence.

Working with three outstanding and internationally renowned artists, Jananne Al-Ani, Baptist Coelho, and Shaun Gladwell, our aim is to explore this most enduring and, some would argue, most dangerous aspect of war, namely its presence and intersection with the everyday. We wish to bring the paradoxical silent roar of battle to the gallery space so that we might understand its dynamic and its imprint upon the body politic and upon the subject of (international) politics. Working primarily with photography, film and multi-media installations, all three artists have direct experience of the zones of conflict and war, from Iraq, to India, to Bangladesh, to Afghanistan, and then ‘back home’ where the traces of war are revealed again, as if there is no such thing as leaving war behind. The intention of all three artists is to present works responding to our theme.

Our aim is to create a space for an exploratory dialogue between academic research into the subject of war and its intersection with the everyday, as well as artists’ encounters with war and the conceptual schema that render it both comprehensible and strange. We hope this collaboration can enable such a dialogue with students and researchers, as well as members of the general public, who will be able to experience the exhibition in the Inigo Rooms and other spaces at King’s College London. Public events and colloquia will take place during the course of the exhibition. There will, in addition, be an exhibition catalogue, to incorporate selected essays and commentary.

Effective start/end date: 26/10/2016 - 18/12/2016

"Traces of War" : A dance performance created by cast of veterans of war and young people

Candoco Dance Company and the cast members of the Charlie F Project present a newly commissioned dance piece performed by students from King’s College London, Cando2 Youth Company, local school children and war veterans.

The performances moved through spaces around Somerset House East Wing and the Inigo rooms amongst the exhibition works. Three videos capturing the making of the work are online via our Traces of War YouTube Channel

Watch the dance performances here.

 

 

Traces of War: A Pre-Exhibition Symposium

 

The Symposium introduced the artists, Jananne Al-Ani, Baptist Coelho, and Shaun Gladwell, and provided an opportunity for dialogue among scholars, artists, practitioners and interested parties around the subject of the exhibition: the presence and intersection of war with the everyday

Panel discussions were divided into three themes/ panels:

  • Traces of war: The View from Above will explore, in a discussion with the artist Jananne Al-Ani, the relationship between the technologies of photography and flight, with a particular focus on the British landscape.
  • Traces, Fragments and Landscapes of War will delve into the everyday-ness of war by making use of what Baptist Coelho refers to as the ‘fabrics’ of war – literally the materials that have lived in hostile zones.
  • Traces and Introspections in Zones of War focuses on the camera as a means to destabilize the time and space of war, and engages with the work of artist, Shaun Gladwell.

 

Work that has informed Traces of War Exhibition includes:

The Artists

Jananne Al-Ani

Jananne Al-Ani, is a London basedIraqi-born artist. Working with photography, film and video, she has an ongoing interest in the representation of contested landscapes filtered through the technologies of surveillance and aerial reconnaissance in modern warfare. Al-Ani has exhibited widely nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include In-Dis-Appearance, E-WERK, Freiburg (2015); Excavations, Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (2014); Groundwork, Beirut Art Center (2013) and Shadow Sites, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC (2012). She participated in Mom, am I Barbarian?, the 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013); Re:Emerge Towards a New Cultural Cartography, Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013); all our relations, the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) and The Futureof a Promise, the 54th Venice Biennale (2011).

Recipient of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011), her work is in the collections of the Tate and the Imperial War Museum, London;Centre Pompidou, Paris; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and Darat al Funun, Amman.

Recent publications include Documents of Contemporary Art: Moving Image, edited by Omar Kholeif and published by the Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press; Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Imageby Laura U Marks, published by MIT Press and an interview with Cécile Bourne-Farrellfor Issue 59 of the journal Multitudes, published by Association Multitudes, Paris (all 2015). She is currently Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Arts London.

Baptist Coelho

Baptist Coelho was the 2015-16 Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. A key focus of his practice is to uncover how conflict affects and relates to everyday life. His artistic process, fact-finding and engagement with military and civilian personnel in conflict zones leads his works in various media, including installation, video, sound, photography, performance and sculpture. These explore the notions of conflict, emotion along with thepastand present experience of across varied geographies.

In 2006, Baptist received his Masters of Arts from the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design (BIAD), UK. He was awarded the 'Sovereign Asian Art Prize' (2016) by The Sovereign Art Foundation, Hong Kong; ‘Façade Video Award’ (2011) by Art Today Association, Plovdiv-Bulgaria; ‘Promising Artist Award’ (2007) by Art India & India Habitat Centre, Delhi-India and ‘Johnson Prize Fund’ (2006) by BIAD, UK

Solo Exhibitions include, Goethe-Zentrum, Hyderabad-India (2015); Project 88, Mumbai-India (2015); Ladakh Arts and Media Organization in Leh-India (2015); Pump House Gallery, London-UK (2012); Grand Palais, Bern-Switzerland (2009); Project 88, Mumbai-India (2009); Visual Arts Gallery, Delhi-India (2009) and BIAD, UK (2006).

Baptist has also participated in various artist residencies; conducted workshops, artist talks and panel discussions across Asia, Europe, UAE and South Africa. The artist lives and works in Mumbai. Visit his website www.baptistcoelho.com

Shaun Gladwell

Based in London, Gladwell's art is known primarily for its investigation into contemporary forms of human movement, spatial experience and transformation. These themes have been explored through video and photographic recordings of the artist himself, as well as other athletes involved inextreme sport. Gladwell uses activities such as skateboarding, parkour, BMX bicycle riding, graffiti, urban exploring or "buildering", as well as completely invented actions, as a means to rethink the function of objects and environments. Through his work, Gladwell proposes alternative representations of the individual and their agency to directly author or re-author their environment.

Gladwell has been exhibiting extensively throughout Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe since 2001. He has participated in many international biennales and triennales, including: the Yokohama Triennale (2005); Busan Biennale and Bienal de São Paulo (both 2006);La Biennale di Venezia (2007 & 2009); the Biennale of Sydney, Taipei Biennial and Biennale Cuvée, Linz (all 2008); Cairo Biennial (2010); the Shanghai Biennale, China (2012); The California-Pacific Triennial and SCAPE 7, Public Art Christchurch Biennial, New Zealand (both 2013); as well as la Biennale d’Arte Contemporain, Douai (2015). In 2009, Gladwell was Australia’s representative at the 53rd Venice Biennale.

 

 

The Curators

Vivienne Jabri, Professor of International Relations

Vivienne Jabri is a leading voice in developing understandings of war, violence, security, and conflict, drawing on critical, post structural, and feminist social and political theory. The author is widely published, with four monographs, two co-edited volumes, and a number of peer reviewed articles in leading International Relations journals, including European Journal of International Relations, International Theory, the Review of International Studies, International Political Sociology, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, and Security Dialogue, amongst others. Vivienne Jabri has served on the Economic and Social research Council’s professorial fellowships selection panel (2010); on the ORA Plus final assessors’ committee (2013), and on the Politics and International Studiessubject panel for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) of the UK’s Higher Education Funding Council. She serves on the Editorial Boards of the journals, International Political Sociology, the Journal of Global Security Studies, Security Dialogue, and Alternatives. Jabri’s most recent books include War and the Transformation of Global Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and The Postcolonial Subject (Routledge, 2013).

Cécile Bourne-Farrell, Independent Curator

Cécile Bourne-Farrell is an independent curator who worked for the Musée d’Art Moderne Ville de la Paris (ARC) and for both public and private institutions in Africa, Asia and Europe. One of her recent projects was for Es Baluard Museu, Palma, Mallorca and she has been appointed curator of SUD triennale, Douala, Cameroon. She served the committee of the NMAC Foundation, Spain (2002-06) and since 2006 the curatorial delegation of L’appartement 22, Rabat, Morocco. She is currently working with M. Linman (www.newpatrons.eu) for the implementation of public projects for Fondation de France in the suburb of Saint Denis, Paris, and was the Fondation’s Spanish mediator for 5 years. See www.chooseone.org.

 

King's Cultural Programming

The project is supported by the Cultural Programming at King’s, connecting the university with practitioners, producers, policy makers and participants across arts and culture, creating space where conventions are challenged and original perspectives emerge. Through its programmes and activities, Culture at King's aims to put academic research to work in the cultural sector, enhance the student experience, inspire new approaches to teaching, research and learning and increase public engagement with the work of King’s.

 

Exhibitions

 

Professor Vivienne Jabri and Curator Cécile Bourne-Farrell

Traces of War, reimagines war beyond its exceptionality, locating it in spaces where it would be least expected. At the same time, the art works reveal the sheer power of the everyday, as life itself and in its most ordinary makes its presence felt in the most dangerous locations of war. Artists from Goya to Dix variously and differently reveal the horrors of war and its imprint upon the body and the body politic, as if we might easily contrast the peace of the everyday with the destructive exceptionalism of war. However, the everyday also has a capacity to make its imprint on war, and this is shown most strongly in, for example, Mona Hatoum’s steel installation, Grater Divide (2002), where an everyday object, such as a kitchen utensil, acquires a menacing, frightening presence.

Working with three outstanding and internationally renowned artists, Jananne Al-Ani, Baptist Coelho, and Shaun Gladwell, our aim is to explore this most enduring and, some would argue, most dangerous aspect of war, namely its presence and intersection with the everyday. We wish to bring the paradoxical silent roar of battle to the gallery space so that we might understand its dynamic and its imprint upon the body politic and upon the subject of (international) politics. Working primarily with photography, film and multi-media installations, all three artists have direct experience of the zones of conflict and war, from Iraq, to India, to Bangladesh, to Afghanistan, and then ‘back home’ where the traces of war are revealed again, as if there is no such thing as leaving war behind. The intention of all three artists is to present works responding to our theme.

Our aim is to create a space for an exploratory dialogue between academic research into the subject of war and its intersection with the everyday, as well as artists’ encounters with war and the conceptual schema that render it both comprehensible and strange. We hope this collaboration can enable such a dialogue with students and researchers, as well as members of the general public, who will be able to experience the exhibition in the Inigo Rooms and other spaces at King’s College London. Public events and colloquia will take place during the course of the exhibition. There will, in addition, be an exhibition catalogue, to incorporate selected essays and commentary.

Project status: Completed
Traces-of-War-spotlight-image

Principal Investigator