Tarjama/Translation: New Video Art
NEW YORK, May 17, 2009 – Asia Society and ArteEast celebrated Asian Contemporary Art Week 2009 with a special screening of new video art from the Middle East, Central Asia, and their diasporas. The videos were a selection of works from a larger exhibition entitled Tarjama/Translation produced by ArteEast at the Queens Museum of Art from May through September 2009. The screening included a number of acclaimed artists from Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkey: Esra Ersen, Gülsün Karamustafa, Almagul Menlibayeva, Mitra Tabrizian, Farhad Moshiri, Solmaz Shahbazi, and Alexander Ugay.
Following the screening, artists Esra Ersen and Almagul Menlibyeva and Tarjama/Translation curators Leeza Ahmady, Iftikhar Dadi, and Reem Fada discussed the larger issues of translation and cultural exchange raised by the work. Artists Ersen and Menlibyeva talked about their experience making their site-specific commissioned works for the exhibition.