The Ruya Foundation is pleased to announce the release of two new titles in the Ruya Notebooks series, Artist Hiwa K and Curator Aneta Szyłak in Conversation and Artists in their Own Words selected by Philippe Van Cauteren.
Launched in 2017 with Art and Its Objects: 5 essays on contemporary art selected by Jonathan Watkins, Ruya Notebooks is a series of titles that provides a unique educational resource to isolated artistic communities, primarily in the Middle East, who have little access to art educational resources.
For each Notebook an artist, curator or critic selects a number of short texts which they have identified as fundamental to their creative development. These texts are then translated into Arabic, in most cases for the first time, and distributed free of charge to schools, groups and individuals.
For the first of the new titles, two selections have been placed in parallel with one another, creating a conversation of sorts between artist Hiwa K and curator Aneta Szyłak. The relationship between curator and artist is thrown into interesting relief by the inclusion in Hiwa K’s selection of an essay by Aneta Szyłak, as well as a conversation between the two of them. The texts are as follows:
Hiwa K’s selection:
1 ‘Twist and (Don’t) Shout: A conversation between Hiwa K, Aneta Szyłak and Francesca Recchia’ (2012)
2 Aneta Szyłak, ‘Curating Context’ (2013)
3 Irit Rogoff, ‘Smuggling an Embodied Criticality’ (2006)
4 Hito Steyerl, ‘Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life’ (2011)
Aneta Szyłak’s selection:
1 Michel de Certeau, ‘General Introduction to The Practice of Everyday Life’ (1980)
2 Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Art and Answerability (1919)
3 Boris Buden, ‘The Pit of Babel or: The Society that Mistook Culture for Politics’ (2005)
4 Homi Bhabha, ‘Articulating the archaic: Cultural difference and colonial noise’ (chapter 7 of The Location of Culture) (1994)
