Conversation

The World is Alright: an Interview with the Moroccan Artist Youssef Wahboun

In this interview, the artist Youssef Wahboun reveals the secret of his despairing view of the world: love of humanity, independent of identity - ideological, ethnic, or racial. Anything that happens, even in the remotest place, irritates and pains him, and yet he insists on dreaming that the future of humanity will be better. In his exhibition at The French Institute in Rabat, this belief is evident in the butterflies that pervade his works as a chromatic echo conferring glamor upon a dark reality.

A Tourist in Your Own Home: a Conversation with Shasha Dothan

The artist Shasha Dothan has recently curated a virtual show of works addressing the sense of alienation experienced by immigrants, of which she is one. Hagai Ulrich spoke with her about the show and her works, in which she rows a canoe across her living room, invites a male stripper to an apartment, and erects a tent-installation where she hosts works by immigrant women.

Optical Illusions

Hagai Ulrich talks with Oran Hoffmann about perception, photography, perspective, and optical illusions, about Cézanne, Albers, Vasarely, and about performativity in photography, following Hoffmann's exhibition "Love-Sick Heart," which had recently been shown at The Lobby - Art Space. 

Artists as a Public: A Conversation with Abraham Kritzman

Under the extreme political controversy surrounding the Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem, and in the shadow of the political decision to evict the gallery from its current space, Lonnie Monka talks with Abraham Kritzman, an artist and the gallery’s curator, about being an artist-led institution, curating and writing about art, and the concern that the political struggle will overshadow the attempt to make art.

Available in Audio

Tohu Podcast: A conversation with Rafram Chaddad

David Duvshani talks with Rafram Chaddad, artist and connoisseur of cooking traditions of the Mediterranean, who lives in Tunisia. They discuss art and food, wandering, traditions and their preservation, artworks created by Chaddad in recent years, and the contemporary art scene in Tunisia.

Available in Audio

Tohu Podcast: A Conversation with Hakim Bishara

From researching and re-imagining a 1943 exhibition of modern Lebanese art in Jerusalem to writing for a leading independent arts magazine, to being part of an artist-run gallery in Brooklyn, Hakim Bishara has been experimenting with various practices in the past few years. David Duvshani recently met the Palestinian writer, curator, and artist in New York for a conversation about these multiple ventures and about the New York cultural scene in the Trump era.

 

Available in Audio

Tohu Podcast: A Conversation with Mierle Laderman Ukeles

In this Tohu Podcast, David Duvshani meets performance and social practice art pioneer Mierle Laderman Ukeles in Jerusalem for a conversation following her move to Jerusalem and her latest retrospective exhibition at the Queens Museum in New York. They talk about manifestos, authenticity, collaboration, art education, women artists, labor organization, life in Jerusalem, and the state of the political Left in the US and in Israel/Palestine.

A Conversation With Jonas Mekas

“If you live in the past, if you can’t escape, then you cannot build a new house, a new future.” Christos Paridis talks with Jonas Mekas about memory, trauma, and the afterlife, about the war years in Lithuania and the 1960’s in New York, and about cinema.

How to Explain Hare Hunting to a Dead German Artist

Joseph Sassoon Semah, a Baghdad-born artist who now lives and works in Amsterdam, is about to embark on an extensive multi-site project, in Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and Baghdad. Berlin-based poet and author Mati Shemoelof talks with him about his years living as an artist in Israel versus being a Babylonian Jew and an artist in Europe. They discuss Judaism, diaspora, exclusion, and acts of concealment and building.

The Middle East Film Initiative: A Conversation with Ruth Priscilla Kirstein

“It’s often Terrorist 1, Terrorist 2, Terrorist 3, and for women it’s even worse.” Matt Hanson talks to Dr. Ruth Priscilla Kirstein, the founder of The Middle East Film Initiative in NYC, about discriminatory practices towards and lack of representation of Middle Eastern cultural practitioners, and about some new community-based methods offered by MEFI for addressing them.

"Hēliotropion" - Shattering or Healing

In anticipation of "Hēliotropion," Tamar Getter's exhibition recently on display at the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, H.S.L.R. talked with her about horses and other matters that preoccupy her in her work: painting stoppages, idealization, and painting as a "machine," immobile.

Organized Choreographies

Dana Yahalomi talks with Elinor Salomon about the work of Public Movement in the public sphere, about the political role of the museum and its collections, and about the technology of knowledge transfer. This is a second conversation in the framework of cooperation between Tohu and Kadist.

Stories in Reverse

Following his current solo exhibition, “Stories in Reverse”, at Piartworks in Istanbul, Huo Rf talks with Merve Akar Akgün about memories, commonality, queer culture, and artist’s privacy.

A Memory Gap

As part of a new joint initiative of Kadist and Tohu Magazine to publish video interviews, Elinor Salomon talks with Elham Rokni about reconstruction and memory, biography and history, Orientalism and men with a Middle Eastern appearance.

Glimpses of an Interview

Having found out that the renowned art historian and philosopher, Georges Didi-Huberman, was coming to Tel Aviv University to give a keynote lecture, we asked Michal Sapir, the translator of his recently published book in Hebrew, to invite him to give an interview for Tohu Magazine.

The Chosen People - a Small Guide to a Big Revolution

"The resolution of the occupation is obviously not going to happen right now, but there are a lot of things that might happen very soon. The question is where to start.” The Yes Men’s Jacques Servin (aka Andy Bichlbaum) in conversation with Maayan Sheleff, following his recent visit to Jerusalem.