The Markaz Review editors have sharply picked some exhibitions for to go see if you near any of those places:
Arab Design Now Exhibition
Ongoing — August 5, Msheireb, Doha —more info
Arab Design Now presents a survey of local and regional design talent across disciplines, from architectural and material innovations to contemporary crafts, furniture, fashion, graphic, and object design. It is curated by Rana Beiruti, a design curator based in Amman, Jordan, previously the co-founder and director of Amman Design Week.
Working across themes of material and visual culture and expression, environmental and innovative use of materials, and considerations of technique, detail, pattern, and aesthetic, the exhibition highlights design excellence from across the region of the Levant, the Gulf, and North Africa. Looking beyond a globalized or imported design language, the exhibition is a reflection on what it means to create in the MENA region today.
Printemps des Comédiens 2024
Ongoing —June 21, Montpellier, France —more info
In the heart of Occitanie, the Printemps des Comédiens festival welcomes some of the biggest European productions. Every year, it hosts renowned masters of international stages, as well as up-and-coming artists and leading European theatre schools. This has positioned the festival as one of the most important hubs for creation, production and public and artist training in Montpellier. Directed by Jean Varela since 2011, the festival presents around 45 shows and 130 performances in the fields of theatre and live performances attracting, nearly 40,000 spectators.
Highlights include a performance of the latest adaptation of acclaimed theatre artist Wajdi Mouawad’s Wedding day at the Cromagnons, created this spring in Beirut and translated into Lebanese Arabic. French subtitles will accompany the performance. In 1991, the Lebanese civil war was coming to an end and Wajdi Mouawad, who was 23 years old at the time, wrote the initial lines of this text. It served as the foundation for what would become a powerful theatrical universe over the next thirty years. The text already contained elements such as the resilient smiles amidst bombings, a longing for a lost world, and the pain of exile.
“What Palestine brings to the world” Exhibition in Tunis
Ongoing — June 28, Tunis, Tunisia — more info
With the support of the Palestinian Embassy in Tunisia, this exhibition organized by the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, along with the programming prepared in collaboration with the French Institute of Tunisia provides a platform for Palestinian artists to showcase their work and contribute to the diversity of the cultural landscape. As Jack Lang, president of the Arab World Institute, writes: “Far from a chronicle of victimhood, the exhibition shows the world in Palestine and Palestine to the world.”
