Rheim Alkadhi (Arabic: ريم القاضي) (born 1973) is a visual artist based in Berlin who works internationally.[1][2] Alkadhi operates under contemporary conditions in alternating geographical contexts, circumscribed by objects, images, and texts, via digital media, interactions in public space, and intimate person-to-person contact.[3] Their work is described as: "With multiple migratory belongings/trajectories in regions of imposed geopolitical conflict, the perception of authoritarian, imperial, colonial dominance is magnified in everyday life. Thus, the work registers a nonconforming emancipatory feminist existence under such planetary conditions, using mediums of language, artifacts of material reality, and living interactions."[4]
Biography
Rheim Alkadhi lived first in Benghazi, Libya, and then between Baghdad and New England; raised by an American mother and an Iraqi father and attended public school in Iraq until the family returned to the United States at the start of the Iran–Iraq War.[5]
Selected projects
2022: Devastation on Your Beautiful Eyes exhibition at Beirut Art Center;[6]Call for Immediate Reparations From the Waves of Our Mass Migration installation at the Trienniale Kleinplastik Fellbach;[7]Speak, Then, Material Witness, in the Medium of Rebellion exhibition as teaching structure at Kunstverein Uelzen[8]
2021: Arrival Points screening and exhibition at Haus der Statistik, Berlin[9]
2020: Toward the Inalienable Right of the Dispossessed in the exhibition Beyond Walls at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart[10]
In 2019: travel to various provinces of Iraq resulted in many of the elements featured in the ongoing framework and exhibition "Majnoon Field". [citation needed]
In 2018: participation in the experimental walking art school Spring Sessions across Jordan; later that year, a public staging at the migrant-run OBI market in Berlin, based on conversations and ongoing relationships initiated in that context. Displayed objects included: mock-up of geo-political extraction field; large block of Styrofoam for flotation; seven shoe fragments collected along migration routes; refugee housing in Europe for a family of eight; patterned blanket; eye of a needle.[11]
In 2017, "Hairs of the Oppressed" was featured at once resolved and ongoing; a sculpture concept accompanied by the text "Script for Eleven Hairs" at Autonomes Cultur Centrum, Weimar. Rotating authorial concept acknowledges the collaborative emancipatory politics/method of Theatre of the Oppressed, on which this piece is based. [citation needed]
In 2016, "Night Taxi", a multimedia suite of documents (video accompanied by meter, route, and fare) outlined milliseconds leading up to the crossing of an arbitrary geographical border.[12]
Between 2015 and 2016: created live presentations included "Eye Theatre Closes Its Doors and Opens Them Again", commissioned for the Asia Pacific Triennial in Australia,[13] and "Köln Phantasm" developed and performed while a fellow in visual art at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.[14]
In 2014: developed the project "Communications From the Field of Contact (Each Hair Is a Tongue)"[1] during a residency at the Sharjah Art Foundation.
In 2012: as a temporary member of a household of women in the West Bank village of Jamma'in in Palestine, the project "Collective Knotting Together of Hairs"[15] was developed with the local Women's Association, with Riwaq Center for Architectural Conservation in Ramallah, and with Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem.
In 2012: artist in residence at Darat al Funun in Amman via the initiative of Rijin Sahakian and Sada for Contemporary Iraqi Art.[16]
In 2011: artist in residence at Dar al Ma'mun in Tassoultante and then independent of institutional assistance in the village of Tahannaout, Al Haouz Province.
In 2010: one month in Itaewon, Seoul with the artist-run space DoBaeBacSa;[17] also artist in residence at PØST in Los Angeles.[18]
In 2009: residency at Townhouse Gallery[19] in Cairo, gathering material for the limited edition artist book "Destroyed in Baghdad / Repaired in Cairo: A Viewer's Manual to a Temporary Art Practice in the Auto Mechanics District". In 2009, the limited edition artist book "Post Cards From the Clandestine Troupe"[20] was printed.
Art Matters (2021);[24] Stiftung Kunstfonds (2021);[25] Künstlerische Forschung Berlin (2020/2021);[26]Guggenheim Foundation (2020);[27] Berlin Senat Research Stipend (2019);[28]AFAC (2019);[29] Rockefeller Bellagio (2017);[30] Mophradat (2017).[31]
Hesaplașma | Aftermath – Akbank Sanat, Istanbul – March 14 through May 17, 2012 (group exhibition)[47]
Lucky Today - Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art (with Hiwa K Hiwa)[48]
Communitas. Among Others - Camera Austria, Graz – September 25, 2011 through January 1, 2012 (group exhibition)[49]
12th Cairo Biennial – Opera House, Cairo – December 12, 2010 through February 12, 2011
The Page: An Interactive Exhibition of Artist Books - Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University[50]
What's Become of Us? - PØST, Los Angeles – November 2010
Exhibition for Adults and Children - Dobaebacsa, Seoul – April 1 through 26, 2010 (solo exhibition)[51]
Veronica – Nichols Gallery, Pitzer Art Galleries – September 24 through December 11, 2009 (group exhibition)[52]
OÙ? Scènes du Sud - Carré d'Art, Nîmes – June 13 through September 21, 2008 (group exhibition)[53]
System Error: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Palazzo delle Papesse, Sienna – February 3 through May 6, 2007[54]
Eternal Flame: Imagining a Future at the End of the World - Redcat, Los Angeles – February 15 through April 8, 2007[55]
When Artists Say We – Artists Space, New York – March 8 – April 29, 2006[56]
Draw a Line and Follow It - Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions – June 21 through August 20, 2006[57]
Live presentations
Our Current Dwelling Is Fire – produced at the Rockefeller Bellagio Center; performed at March Meeting, Sharjah (2018); and Videonale Scope7, Cologne (2019)[58]
View Through the Eye of a Needle - performed in Wadi Rum as part of Spring Sessions (2018)[59]
Mosul Vapor – performed at Kunstgebäude Stuttgart (2017)[60]
Köln Phantasm – produced and performed at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2016); performed at Kunstgebäude Stuttgart (2017)[3][60]
Eye Theater Closes Its Doors and Opens Them Again – presented at Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2015)[61]
Picture City Body – produced in Beirut, commissioned by the New Museum's online platform, 2013[62]
Pictures from a Camera - photo-based poetry from the revolutionary fervor in North Africa, produced in 2011; introduction written for online journal Jadaliyya, translated to Arabic by Sinan Antoon and Bilal Khbeiz, 2011, 2012[63]
Archive of a digital practice comprising digital and narrative gendered constructions, mostly from found online material, 2007–2010[64]
My Lover in Unequal Parts – 'micro literature' based on found images from concurrent wars in Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, 2006[65]
Video work
Majnoon Field – produced from time-based material gathered in Southern Iraq, shown in the exhibition by the same name – 00:10:00, 2019[36]
Night Taxi - commissioned by Raqs Media Collective for Shanghai Bienniale – 00:03:00, 2016[12]
ruh - produced using ephemeral materials available within a makeshift residency in Itaewan, Seoul – 00:06:35, 2010[66]
Subtitles for Stolen Pictures - produced from visual elements of online reportage, US occupation of Iraq – 00:08:00, 2007[67]
Artist books
Majnoon Field Samples - color-based poetry, produced for view within the exhibition "Majnoon Field", 2019[36]
Post Cards from the Clandestine Troupe – book of postcards generated from queered online war imagery from Iraq, with original texts, limited edition of 30, 2009[20]
^Förderprogramm, Künstlerischeforschung Berliner. "Arrival Points by Rheim Alkadhi". Künstlerischeforschung Berliner Förderprogramm (in German). Retrieved 2023-05-07.
