Next week, the ICA will be presenting Masāfāt; a two-part festival that takes place in London and Cairo.
The festival is designed to create an open-ended, international platform to foster artistic and professional exchange between independent artists and professionals across the Middle East, North Africa, and the UK.
The UK programme features four days of performance, installations, talks and workshops, from artists including Deena Abdelwahed, Karen Gwyer and Lafawndah. The festival showcases exclusive collaborations and UK premieres for the Middle Eastern artists Nada El Shazly, Ramallah Collective, ZULI and Herein Lies.
Oren Ambarchi, Sam Shalabi, Mark Fell and Will Guthrie perform a one-off collboration. Mumdance, Logos and Shapednoise present The Sprawl – a UK premiere following on from their live performance at CTM Festival in Berlin, 2015. The festival also features the first ever live performance of Abdullah Miniawy and Carl Gari‘s collaborative record, which was released on UK independent label Trilogy Tapes earlier in 2016.
As part of Masāfāt, the festival will also screen cutting edge films by Middle Eastern fimmakers. On Fri 2nd Sep, watch Slingshot Hip Hop, a documentary exploring how Hip Hop has inspired a young generation of Palestinians to cross the borders imposed on them. On Sat 3rd Sep, is Out On The Street, a film looking at life as a worker in one of Cairo’s working-class neighbourhoods, as well as a special Artists’ Film Club showcasing a selection of works by experimental French-Iranian filmmaker Arasg Nassiri.
The Cairo programme runs September 20th-24th.
For more information visit: https://www.ica.org.uk/whats-on/season/ica-associates-33-33-present-mas-f-t