Design of Necessity
June 4 – September 30, 2022
Opening June 4, 2022
3 PM – 8 PM
Mariakirken
Istedgade 20
1650 København V
Design of Necessity by artist Khaled Barakeh highlights human resilience in wartime. Using a socially engaged art practice as methodology, Barakeh is engaging Syrian siege survivors and Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Denmark. The exhibition takes artistic inspiration from stories exploring Syrians’ determination to stay alive as a collective act that forged networks of solidarity and compassion.
OPENING PROGRAMME:
■ 3 pm Opening featuring the project artwork created in collaboration with twelve Syrian activists, refugees, and asylum seekers who live in Denmark, alongside the work of twelve photographers who witnessed and lived under the siege in Syria.
The photography exhibition is co-curated with Guevara Namer.
■ 4 pm Readings by three Syrian women, assisted by Anne-Marie McManus, head of the European Research Council Grant SYRASP on contemporary Syrian narratives of imprisonment and disappearance.
■ 5 pm Funeral On The Moon – a concert by Syrian musician and composer Milad Khawam.
■ 6 pm Food by De Etniske Rødstrømper, a socio-economic enterprise run by staff and women with roots in the Middle Eastern countries.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
Design of Necessity – the third exhibition during The Maria Project in Mariakirken in Copenhagen – honors the resilience Syrians used to survive sieges carried out by the Assad regime, which systematically used starvation as a weapon of war and torture against its own people. A participatory artwork, it explores new possibilities for understanding and solidarity among the victims of war crimes, inside and outside, past and present.
The sculptural works in the exhibition depict the creative practices Syrians developed with ordinary objects under siege, when they lived in cellars, shelters, and barren hiding places to escape barrel bombs. They learned to grow mushrooms underground and fixed shards of glass to the inside of satellite dishes to harness the sun’s rays for cooking. They recycled plastic to make fuel for electric generators. Like the intertwined networks of the mushroom they grew, they shared this knowledge with each other.
Design of Necessity exhibits satellite dishes installed in Maria Kirkeplads, containers of mushrooms growing in the church space, and a series of documentary materials that will be shown until the end of September. The dishes in turn become artworks, with their fractured reflections provoking spectators to consider the fragmentation of Syrian identities and communities over the past decade. In Danish cities, satellite dishes are often stigmatized objects associated with immigrant areas. Khaled Barakeh’s exhibition transforms them into a sincere image of the search for connection and into icons of Syrians’ resilience – both in the war and in their new, foreign homes.
In Design of Necessity, art is an open platform for sharing memory, practicing solidarity, and reenacting resilience in the name of justice for Syrians, and for all people suffering under siege and starvation. As a result, Mariakirken will serve as a viewing and screening space, conversation room, and forum for practitioners working with conditions and opportunities for victims of war crimes and starvation in besieged areas during the span of the exhibition period.
As formulated in the International Criminal Court Statute, the crime against humanity of “extermination” covers not only the direct, intentional killing of civilians but also intentionally inflicting conditions of life “calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population,” including “the deprivation of access to food and medicine” that results in death. However, until today no independent mechanisms have been established to investigate the siege operations in Syria or support its victims' pursuit of justice.
Read the entire press release for further insights on the consequences of the war in Syria, Khaled Barakeh's artistic practice, and the thoughts and processes behind the works in the exhibition.
https://folkekirken-vesterbro.dk/presserum
Participants in Design of Necessity: Amer Kazkaz, Dima Sada, Fadia Allokla, Ghazal Shemi, Haya Termanini, Joudi Obaid, Lojain Ajek, Ola Ajek, Rami Mahouk, Tarek Kelani, Yasser Omar, Yousef Fares.
Photographers in the exhibition: Abed Doumany, Ameer Alahabi, Aref Tammawi, Bassam Khabieh, Bassel Altawil, Diyaa Khattab, Moayad Zaghmout, Mohammed Badra, Mohammed Abdullah / Artino, Mouhamad Abo Kasem, Rami Muhammad Alsayed, Wissam Khattab Shahleh.
The program for future events will be announced continuously on the project’s website (mariaprojektet.dk) and on this site (@mariaprojektet) and will among others take part in Art Week 2022.
Design of Necessity is realized with support from Studio Khaled Barakeh, PAX, with great assistance from FX team, DanChurchAid, Cinemateket – Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen Art Week, Beyond Coffee, and through a residency at Fabrikken for Kunst og Design.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Please visit www.khaledbarakeh.com/biography
The Maria Project is curated by Matthias Borello and developed in collaboration with Lise Christina Rasmussen, pastor of Mariakirken. The project is generously supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, the Bikuben Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, the Engineer Captain Aage Nielsen Family Fund, the Diocese of Copenhagen (Social Ethics Committee), the Innovative Diaconal Fund, the City of Copenhagen, and the Vesterbro Local Committee, among others, and will run until autumn 2023.
The participating artists: J&K, Stine Jacobsen, Khaled Barakeh, Hanne Thomsen, Kenneth Balfelt Team, Santiago Mostyn og Tamar Guimarães & Jeuno JE Kim & Ronah Sadan.